Stefano De Martis – Ceramica romana: nuovi studi e approfondimenti

6 Maggio 2021

Nearly twenty years have passed since the last major exhibition event devoted to the phenomenon of modernist Roman ceramics, over ten, also taking into account some exhibitions that represented the coherent and direct development of that event. In this long period of time, some works relating to individual artists or artistic manufacturers, at the same time, have enriched the general picture and indicated the considerable margins for further study that are still possible. This essay, therefore, first of all carries out a reasoned survey of studies on the subject, starting with the pioneering Faenza exhibition of 1988, and reconstructs the historical-critical framework that these studies have progressively outlined. If this framework has demonstrated and still demonstrates its solidity, it is also true that in recent years numerous new elements have emerged from documentary research and from the materials surveyed in the fields of collecting and the antiques market: new ceramists and new kilns, new attributions and new “cases” to be resolved. The ten cards contained in this essay are intended to exemplify this still unexplored territory. They have different levels of relevance and definition. They do not pretend to be systematic but are like notes for a hypothetical new exhibition on Roman ceramics between the end of the 1910s and the beginning of the 1930s.

Archivio Abstracts