Named after the famous Archbishop of Bologna, Giacomo Lercaro, the Foundation holds an important modern art collection formed in the early 1970s by a group of Bolognese painters and sculptors, Ilario Rossi, Pompilio Mandelli, Enzo Pasquini, and Aldo Borgonzoni, who donated the first core of paintings and sculptures to the Cardinal on the occasion of his eightieth birthday. Since his passing, the Foundation has continued to acquire assets (paintings, sculptures, ceramics, graphic works) through donations, with the aim of perpetuating the high spiritual, social, ethical, and aesthetic goals that Lercaro found in contemporary art, particularly sculpture, which makes up the largest part of the collection. From the early seventies until today, the collection has been directed by Elva Bonzagni Poggi, Franco Solmi, and Marilena Pasquali in collaboration with the Presidency of Mons. Arnaldo Fraccaroli. Open to public enjoyment since 1989, in May 2003 it moved from its initial location at Villa San Giacomo, owned by the Diocesan Opera “Madonna della Fiducia,” to its new home within the recently renovated building that houses the Veritatis Splendor Institute, adjacent to the Cineteca and the MAMBo, inside the cultural hub of the Manifattura delle Arti. Hundreds of works represent the national artistic scene of the 20th century, with some significant international presences: Manzù, Morandi, Marini, Martini, Moore, Giacometti, Ernst, Matta.The Collection comprises about 700 works, including paintings, sculptures, drawings, and graphics, by artists active during the 20th century across various poetic directions, just to mention the major ones, ranging from verist figurative and Novecento to informal, from abstract-concrete art to spatialism, from modernism to postmodern, from surrealism to conceptual, with works by Medardo Rosso, Paolo Troubetzkoy, Adolfo Wildt, Carlo Corsi, Pietro Dodero, Pietro Melandri, Ercole Drei, Aroldo Bonzagni, Giorgio de Chirico, Arturo Martini, Giorgio Morandi, Virgilio Guidi, Michele Cascella, Severo Pozzati, Luciano Baldessari, Nino Corazza, Henry Moore, Mino Maccari, Francesco Messina, Marino Marini, Bruno Saetti, Giovanni Korompay, Alberto Viani, Giacomo Manzù, Mirko (Balsadella), Corrado Cagli, Toni Benetton, Luciano Minguzzi, Pietro Annigoni, Angelo Biancini, Vittorio Magelli, Renato Guttuso, Aligi Sassu, Bruno Cassinari, Piero Giunni, Giovanni Ciangottini, Ivo Tartarini, Guidone Romagnoli, Pericle Fazzini, Antonio Mazzotti, Gastone Breddo, Quinto Ghermandi, Nello Leonardi, Remo Brindisi, Gino Covili, Ernesto Treccani, Giuseppe Ferrari, Raimondo Rimondi, Vasco Bendini, Mario Nanni, Dino Boschi, Pirro Cuniberti, Sergio Vacchi, Germano Sartelli, Arnaldo and Giò Pomodoro, Carlo Zauli, Mario Bocchini, Sergio Romiti, Luciano De Vita, Floriano Bodini, Simon Benetton, Concetto Pozzati, Richard Hesse, Ivo Sassi, Carlo Santachiara, Davide Scarabelli, Enrico Mulazzani, Fabrizio Passarella, Bianca Rosa Arcangeli (Rosalba), Alberto Giacometti, Roberto Sebastian Matta, Jean Michel Folon and Lucio Fontana. The permanent exhibition, spread over two floors, is completed by a room for temporary exhibitions, one for conferences, and a library with more than ten thousand art books. Temporary exhibitions also take place within the spaces of the Lercaro Collection, including “Georges Rouault. The Night of Redemption. Graphic works and drawings” and “Giovanni Poggeschi. Seeing the Things of the World” in 2010 and “In the Light of the Cross. Ancient and Contemporary Art in Comparison” in 2011.
Information about Lercaro Modern Art Gallery Collection
Via Riva Reno, 57,
40121 Bologna (Bologna)
0512966120
segreteria@fondazionelercaro.it
Source: MIBACT
