Photo: Lungoleno · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Museo d'arte moderna e contemporanea Filippo de Pisis

Civic museum in Ferrara with the largest public collection of works by Filippo de Pisis and twentieth-century art, at Palazzo Massari (closed for restoration).

Temporarily closed

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Temporarily closed. The museums of Palazzo Massari are closed for restoration work following the 2012 earthquake; no reopening date has been given. The collections can be consulted online.

About the museum

The museum of modern and contemporary art is housed in Palazzo Massari, a building begun in the late 16th century at the wish of Count Onofrio Bevilacqua in the Addizione Erculea (Ercolean extension of the city). Since 1975 it has been the seat of the Gallerie d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea of the City of Ferrara. It was named after Filippo de Pisis in 1996, on the occasion of the exhibition marking the centenary of the painter’s birth and the donation to the city of the collection of Manlio and Franca Malabotta.

That bequest, with more than 200 paintings and works on paper of great quality, enriched the already substantial de Pisis holdings and created the largest and most important public collection of the artist, illustrating all phases of his career: from early works of a twilight and metaphysical character, through the Paris period, to the late still lifes of Brugherio. The museum also holds paintings and sculptures by twentieth-century artists from Ferrara such as Aroldo Bonzagni, Achille Funi, Roberto Melli and Arrigo Minerbi, and works by Sironi, Licini, Fini, Guttuso, Warhol, Rotella and Schifano, built up through bequests and through the exhibitions of Franco Farina at Palazzo dei Diamanti. The donation by Lola Bonora also brought Farina’s private collection.

The earthquake of May 2012 made Palazzo Massari unsafe to use; the museums are closed for restoration work, and the collections can be consulted online. No reopening date has been given.

Highlights

The largest public collection of works by Filippo de Pisis
Malabotta donation with more than 200 works
Twentieth-century Ferrarese artists (Bonzagni, Funi, Melli, Minerbi)
Works by Sironi, Licini, Fini, Guttuso, Warhol and Rotella
Franco Farina collection, donated by Lola Bonora