The Museo Novecento pays tribute to the Valdarno-born artist Lorenzo Bonechi with a solo exhibition featuring 25 works in dialogue with the museum’s permanent collection, seventy years after his birth. A pioneer of drawing-based research, he experimented with engraving and sculpture, before devoting himself, starting in 1982, almost exclusively to painting, using tempera and oil. Deeply rooted in Tuscan culture, Bonechi carefully examines the art of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, delving into the Byzantine tradition and that of Russian icons, combining spiritual exploration with the study of historical and literary sources. This resulted in works steeped in references to ancient painting and sacred iconography, in a journey characterized by a rare expressive coherence.

The exhibition seeks to highlight in particular the role of the female figure in the artist’s work. Ethereal yet grounded women, set against harmonious landscapes and minimal architectures, appear at times as hermit saints, at others as protagonists of an inspired sisterhood. Alone or in groups, they emerge as emanations of a dual nature, earthly and divine, evoking both images of Christianity and the Greek Korai.

With this project, Museo Novecento aims to shed new light on an artist of extraordinary depth, who passed away prematurely but was already internationally recognized during his lifetime. His works were exhibited in prestigious museums and galleries: from the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo to the Tate Gallery in London, from the Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum in Washington to the Sperone Westwater Gallery in New York.


Credits ph: Leonardo Morfini