Galleria d’Arte Moderna

Galleria d’Arte Moderna

16th-century monastery-turned-museum with a large collection of modern works by well-known artists. The story of the Municipal Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art starts in 1883 when the Municipality purchased 40 watercolors by Ettore Roesler Franz and a few historical and generic works at the Universal Exhibition. In the following decades, since the city had purchased for various purposes otherworks, the idea of building a Municipal Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art started to shape up.

in 1925 when the collection counted about 200 works consisting of paintings, sculptures, and graphics, it was exhibited to the public in Palazzo Caffarelli on the Capitol Hill and took the name of Galleriad’Arte Moderna (Gallery of Modern Art). The collection kept on increasing and in 1931 a new arrangement was set up, including several donations and especially the 70 works purchased by the Municipality at the First Roman Quadriennial. In 1938 the Gallery was temporarily closed although the Municipality continued its acquisitions. In 1963 it was reopened in the Palace of Exhibitions remaining open to the public until 1972, when it was closed once again, due to the need to restore the Palace, and the works were placed in the depots of Palazzo Braschi and in some rooms belonging to the Municipality. About one third of the works were used to decorate offices. Waiting for a final accomodation, part of the collections was transferred to the ancient convent of the Barefooted Carmelites of St. Joseph at Capo le Case, where they are once again open to the public since 1995. The collection includes works that represent the most significant moments of the Italian art from the late nineteenth century to the Second World War. The works are by V. Gemito, G.A. Sartorio, the XXV della Campagna Romana, G. Balla, Tato, F. Depero, N. Costa, G. Morandi, G. De Pisis, F. Trombadori, Scipione, F.Casorati, G. Capogrossi, G. De Chirico, C. Carrà, G. Severini, M. Mafai, R.Guttuso, Afro, and A. Savinio. The revision of the inventory of the entire collection performed between 1991 and 1994 has estimated more than 4,000 pieces, between the works exhibited and the ones in store. Meanwhile in 1999 the second new site of the Gallery was inaugurated in the former Peroni building. A selection of masterpieces from the collection in 1995 was hosted in the seat of Via Crispi, in the former convent of the Discalced Carmelites in S.Giuseppe Capo le Case, which still houses the Museum. After a period of closure due to renovation works, the museum reopened on November 2011.

The Collection

The collection of the Gallery of Modern Art is exposed in sequence and follows specific thematic paths linked to temporary exhibitions. However, the following sculptural works are always on display, testifying to the varied path of Italian sculpture from the end of the 19th to the middle of the 20th century:

Girolamo Masini, Cleopatra, 1882;
AdolfoWildt, Maschera del dolore (Autoritratto), 1909;
Giovanni Prini, Gli amanti, 1909-1913;
Giovanni Prini, Le gemelle Azzariti, 1913;
Arturo Dazzi, Antonella, 1923;
Amleto Cataldi, Galatea, 1925;
Arturo Dazzi, Cavallino, 1927-1928;
Arturo Martini, Il pastore, 1930;
Marino Marini, Bagnante, 1934;
Dino Basaldella, Pescatore d’anguilla, 1934;
Attilio Torresini, Afrodite, 1930-1934;
Guido Galletti, Prometeo, 1935;
Ercole Drei, Il seminatore, 1937;
Italo Griselli, Romolo, 1937-1939;
Attilio Torresini, Riposo, 1938-1939;
Guido Galletti, Venere con i tre amorini, 1939;
Carlo Rivalta, Madre, 1939;
Tommaso Bertolino, Languore, 1939;
Giacomo Manzù, Bambina sulla sedia, 1955.

The collection of the Galleria d’Arte Moderna of Roma Capitale includes over three thousand works, such as paintings, sculptures, drawings, engravings, which bear witness of the history of collecting art and culture in Rome at the turn of the nineteenth century and throughout the first half of the twentieth century.
This meaningful and symbolic collection of works, real masterpieces of the twentieth century, come from additional and ongoing acquisitions by the City of Rome from the