Fondazione Ragghianti, Lucca
Vernissage Friday 23 November, 6 pm
23 November 2018 – 6 January 2019
From Tuesday to Sunday 10am – 1pm and 3pm – 7pm
free admission
On Friday 23 November, at 6 pm, the Fondazione Ragghianti will be opening an exhibition dedicated to the historical art-printing house Angeli, which had carried out for more than four decades, from the Seventies of the XX century, an important activity linked to many of the most important artists, from Lucca, Tuscany and Italy, thanks to its owner Giuliano Angeli.
The exhibition, curated by Mauro Lovi and realized thanks to the support of the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Lucca, is part of the program Toscanaincontemporanea 2018 of the Regione Toscana, with the aim of promoting innovative and high quality projects in the cultural field.
The exhibition, Angeli, lithographers in Lucca – The printing house Angeli: four decades of lithographs, goes back over the history of an Italian reality. The printing house was founded in 1948 in Lucca by Giuliano’s father, Giulio Angeli, thanks to a little windfall, which allowed him to buy a lithographic press and to work together with his own family making labels and prints for commercial companies (wines, liquors, oil…).
Giuliano Angeli took the firm in hand during the Sixties and started working with the artists of Lucca, who joined the technique of lithograph (drawing on stone) answering to the need to make art more accessible.
The use of this ancient technique of printing, revived in the illustrated posters of late 19th century above all by Toulouse-Lautrec, spread among Lucca’s painters thanks to the willingness of Giuliano, who reached a very high level in this technique.
The Litografia Angeli became one of the best art-printing house in Italy, making hundreds of lithographs signed by great painters: from Uberto Bonetti to Robert Carroll, from Primo Conti to Gianni Dova, from Omar Galliani to Mino Maccari, Sebastian Matta, Ennio Morlotti, Antonio Possenti, Riccardo Tommasi Ferroni, from Ernesto Treccani to Renzo Vespignani, just to mention some.
The printing house closed on 2011.
“The activity of the Angeli printing house testifies on a social level, the aspiration of the new bourgeoisie born from the economic boom of the 1960s to culturally rise, respect to the peasant and proletarian origin of the previous generation, through the purchase of works of art. The art collecting of lithographs, more affordable for its serial reproducibility, but often rich in strong artistic qualities, then became an important means of socio-cultural elevation”says Paolo Bolpagni, director of the Fondazione Ragghianti. The exhibition shows about sixty lithographs, among the most significant and technically complex ever printed by Angeli, by the artists mentioned above and others, together with a series of progressive printings of the colours of a lithograph and lithographic folders by Angeli. A wooden press with star wheel and its own printing equipment, inks, instruments, paper and a series of lithographic stones. The exhibition, accompanied by a catalogue that documents the history of the Angeli printing house, as well as the works on display, is free admission and will be open until 6 January 2019 with the following timetable: From Tuesday to Sunday 10am – 1pm and 3pm – 7pm.
Free guided tours are available for schools, by reservation.
Two workshop on the lithographic technique held by the artist Giuseppe Renda and Angeli himself are scheduled on December 6 and 7 at 4.30 p.m.
For information and reservation: info@fondazioneragghianti.it; tel. +39 0583 467205
