The Jacorossi Collection
The Jacorossi Collection is a “company collection”.
Composed of around 2500 works, the Jacorossi Collection is a “company collection”. It is a dynamic corpus that eschews a strictly historical perspective and encourages the viewer to reflect on new cultural perspectives and paths.
Rome, in fact, is the leit-motif running through the collection, and the works it contains span a century: from 1900 to 2000.
Composed of around 2500 works, the Jacorossi Collection is a “company collection”. It is a dynamic corpus that eschews a strictly historical perspective and encourages the viewer to reflect on new cultural perspectives and paths.
Rome, in fact, is the leit-motif running through the collection, and the works it contains span a century: from 1900 to 2000.
It starts with the XXV della Campagna Romana, a group of Italian artists that was formed at the beginning of the 1900s and included Giulio Aristide Sartorio, Giuseppe Carosi, Filippo Anivitti, Giovanni Costantini and Camillo Innocent; artists who in late 19th-century Rome advocated the rejection of the academic in favour of painting from life.
The XXV della Campagna Romana lead us to the second group of artists present in the collection, whose dissent, in the wake of the European secessions and breakaway movements, sparked new debates on the art world and its mechanisms, giving rise to the first Rome Secession exhibition in 1913. They include Armando Spadini, represented in the collection by various important works, who deserves a special mention for having constituted a link between Spanish, French, and Italian painting of the beginning of the 20th century. His work became the essential touchstone for the new generations of Roman artists.
The 1916 Rome Secession exhibition was the last one, due to the outbreak of World War I, of which Giovanni Costantini’s large canvases – part of the Le lacrime della guerra (The Tears of War) series – characterized by a harsh realism and strong antimilitarist stance, are a powerful testimony.
As we continue, we find many works from the 1920s and ’30s which, centring on Rome, document the various artistic currents that developed after the war: Return to Order, Magic Realism, Second Futurism and Primitivism. The names of the exponents of this unique period of 20th-century Italian art are well-known: Giorgio de Chirico, Alberto Savinio, Arturo Martini, Mario Broglio, Emanuele Cavalli, Francesco Di Cocco, Carlo Socrate, Marino Mazzacurati, Guglielmo Janni, Franco Gentilini, Mario Sironi, Giacomo Balla, Gino Severini, Pippo Oriani, Mario Mafai and Antonietta Raphaël.
Corrado Cagli is also present with a corpus representing various “periods” in his career between the 1920s and ’60s. He can be seen as a “bridge” between figuration and abstraction and, at the same time, a vital link with art in the United States. His name is also connected with other artists who bring us to the 1940s and ’50s, namely Toti Scialoja, Ettore Colla, Leoncillo Leonardi, Afro and Mirko Basaldella, whose work is characterized by abstract research.
They are followed by a generation central to the collection, that of Mario Schifano, Franco Angeli and Tano Festa, who are a powerful presence, given the number of their works on display. They are accompanied by Giosetta Fioroni, Pino Pascali, Renato Mambor and Cesare Tacchi. All these artists were totally involved in the Roman art scene of the 1960s and belonged to the Scuola di Piazza del Popolo, which never really became an actual movement, promoted by the photographer and gallerist Plinio De Martiis.
De Martiis ran the Galleria La Tartaruga from 1954 onwards, and was one of the leading lights of the Rome art scene in the postwar period. He was a great friend of Ovidio Jacorossi and their warm relationship was based on mutual understanding and respect; it also influenced the purchases made by Jacorossi over the years.
The 1970s and ’80s are represented by a large number of works by Emilio Prini and Gino De Dominicis, who were also active in the ’90s. Prini was one of the leading exponents of the Arte Povera movement, but the collection also displays works by other members, namely Luciano Fabro, Giulio Paolini, Joseph Kosuth and Michelangelo Pistoletto.
Conceptual art was countered by Nuova Figurazione, which came into being between the end of the 1970s and ’80s, by Transavanguardia and certain works of the Scuola di San Lorenzo.
The Anacronisti were presented at the 1984 Venice Biennale by Maurizio Calvesi and Plinio De Martiis. Ovidio Jacorossi purchased a body of their works that virtually represented the entire group, who had a typically Italian Neohumanist background and proposed a “new conceptual figurative style of painting”. The series of large works by Mario Schifano, commissioned by the collector on the occasion of the reopening of Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome,
is highly representative of the 1990s.
It starts with the XXV della Campagna Romana, a group of Italian artists that was formed at the beginning of the 1900s and included Giulio Aristide Sartorio, Giuseppe Carosi, Filippo Anivitti, Giovanni Costantini and Camillo Innocent; artists who in late 19th-century Rome advocated the rejection of the academic in favour of painting from life.
The XXV della Campagna Romana lead us to the second group of artists present in the collection, whose dissent, in the wake of the European secessions and breakaway movements, sparked new debates on the art world and its mechanisms, giving rise to the first Rome Secession exhibition in 1913. They include Armando Spadini, represented in the collection by various important works, who deserves a special mention for having constituted a link between Spanish, French, and Italian painting of the beginning of the 20th century. His work became the essential touchstone for the new generations of Roman artists.
The 1916 Rome Secession exhibition was the last one, due to the outbreak of World War I, of which Giovanni Costantini’s large canvases – part of the Le lacrime della guerra (The Tears of War) series – characterized by a harsh realism and strong antimilitarist stance, are a powerful testimony.
As we continue, we find many works from the 1920s and ’30s which, centring on Rome, document the various artistic currents that developed after the war: Return to Order, Magic Realism, Second Futurism and Primitivism. The names of the exponents of this unique period of 20th-century Italian art are well-known: Giorgio de Chirico, Alberto Savinio, Arturo Martini, Mario Broglio, Emanuele Cavalli, Francesco Di Cocco, Carlo Socrate, Marino Mazzacurati, Guglielmo Janni, Franco Gentilini, Mario Sironi, Giacomo Balla, Gino Severini, Pippo Oriani, Mario Mafai and Antonietta Raphaël.
Corrado Cagli is also present with a corpus representing various “periods” in his career between the 1920s and ’60s. He can be seen as a “bridge” between figuration and abstraction and, at the same time, a vital link with art in the United States. His name is also connected with other artists who bring us to the 1940s and ’50s, namely Toti Scialoja, Ettore Colla, Leoncillo Leonardi, Afro and Mirko Basaldella, whose work is characterized by abstract research.
They are followed by a generation central to the collection, that of Mario Schifano, Franco Angeli and Tano Festa, who are a powerful presence, given the number of their works on display. They are accompanied by Giosetta Fioroni, Pino Pascali, Renato Mambor and Cesare Tacchi. All these artists were totally involved in the Roman art scene of the 1960s and belonged to the Scuola di Piazza del Popolo, which never really became an actual movement, promoted by the photographer and gallerist Plinio De Martiis.
De Martiis ran the Galleria La Tartaruga from 1954 onwards, and was one of the leading lights of the Rome art scene in the postwar period. He was a great friend of Ovidio Jacorossi and their warm relationship was based on mutual understanding and respect; it also influenced the purchases made by Jacorossi over the years.
The 1970s and ’80s are represented by a large number of works by Emilio Prini and Gino De Dominicis, who were also active in the ’90s. Prini was one of the leading exponents of the Arte Povera movement, but the collection also displays works by other members, namely Luciano Fabro, Giulio Paolini, Joseph Kosuth and Michelangelo Pistoletto.
Conceptual art was countered by Nuova Figurazione, which came into being between the end of the 1970s and ’80s, by Transavanguardia and certain works of the Scuola di San Lorenzo.
The Anacronisti were presented at the 1984 Venice Biennale by Maurizio Calvesi and Plinio De Martiis. Ovidio Jacorossi purchased a body of their works that virtually represented the entire group, who had a typically Italian Neohumanist background and proposed a “new conceptual figurative style of painting”. The series of large works by Mario Schifano, commissioned by the collector on the occasion of the reopening of Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome,
is highly representative of the 1990s.