L’arte italiana all’estero nell’attività espositiva di Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti: la “Mostra germanica” (1950-1951)

Rita Ladogana

2023-01-01

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Abstract

The exhibitions organised by Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti made a fundamental contribution to the cultural history of the twentieth century. Within the rich panorama of the events he organised, the exhibitions abroad were of considerable weight. The best-documented international exhibition was Italienische Kunst der Gegenwart (11 November 1950 – 18 November 1951). Immediately dubbed the “German show”, it was eagerly embraced by the German government and organised, with the patronage of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, by the Studio italiano di Storia dell’arte (Italian Institute of Art History) that Ragghianti had founded in 1945. During the difficult years of the postwar reconstruction, this travelling exhibition (Munich, Düsseldorf, Bremen, Hamburg, Berlin, Mannheim, Pforzheim) had significant political weight, since conceived to introduce the German public to contemporary Italian art with the aim of reconstructing the artistic relationships between the two countries that had been interrupted by a long period of cultural separation during the dictatorships. This essay painstakingly reconstructs all of the phases relative to the realisation of the exhibition, from the planning to its reception in the Italian and German press, drawing on documents preserved in the archive of the Fondazione Ragghianti (Lucca) and the private archive of Francesco Ragghianti (Vicchio).