Giorgio Morandi in the Eni Collection: Two Still Lifes and a Story of Corporate Culture

From 11 December 2025 to 11 January 2026, the Sala Fontana at Palazzo Esposizioni Rome hosts Giorgio Morandi in the Eni Collection. A journey through the cultural history of the six-legged dog and the legacy of Enrico Mattei.

Giorgio Morandi nella Collezione Eni. Un viaggio attraverso la storia culturale del cane a sei zampe e l’eredità di Enrico Mattei, Palazzo Esposizioni Roma

Exhibition promoted by the Department of Culture of Rome Capital and Azienda Speciale Palaexpo, produced by Azienda Speciale Palaexpo and conceived and realised by Eni.

At the heart of the exhibition are two still lifes by Giorgio Morandi, dated 1919 and 1941, belonging to the historic core of the Eni Collection. Seemingly silent works, they nonetheless open up a broader reflection on what it means to collect art, on how art can inhabit workplaces, and on the role played by Enrico Mattei’s vision in shaping a relationship between business and culture that is not ornamental, but structural.

The collection was established between the late 1940s and early 1950s, when Mattei launched a project that went beyond the logic of economic investment. His aim was clear: to create a stimulating environment for Eni’s employees, where the eye could be trained and creativity nurtured even within the everyday context of offices. This is why, alongside Morandi, artists such as Casorati, Sironi, De Pisis, Cantatore and Guttuso entered the collection—works not meant to remain hidden, but to live within working spaces as a constant presence.

Over the years, the collection expanded to include figures such as Boetti, Adami and Rotella, consolidating a principle of sharing: the free availability of the company’s artistic heritage to curators and institutions worldwide. Morandi’s two still lifes, in fact, have already travelled to Japan, Russia, the United States and Spain, carrying with them not only the language of the master, but also an Italian story of modernity and cultural vision.

The exhibition design at Sala Fontana guides visitors through this narrative, revealing a rare continuity: the affinity between Morandi’s painting—defined by restraint, concentration and essential form—and Mattei’s vision, which recognised art as an exercise in disciplined observation. In this encounter between two still lifes and an idea of corporate culture, the exhibition becomes an invitation to look more closely: at objects, at spaces, and at the possibility that art and technology are not opposites, but complementary forces.

Palazzo Esposizioni Roma

Via Nazionale 194

Date

11 Dicembre – 11 Gennaio 2026

Hurvin Anderson at Tate Britain: a retrospective between memory, identity and landscape

In spring 2026, Tate Britain will dedicate its first major retrospective to Hurvin Anderson, an exhibition bringing together around eighty works spanning thirty years of his career.

Maracus III, 2004. (c) Hurvin Anderson. Courtesy the artist and Thomas Dane Gallery. Photo Richard Ivey.

From early pieces to his most recent paintings — including a room of never-before-seen works — the show offers a broad and layered reading of the British artist’s practice, confirming his place as one of the most influential painters of contemporary art.

At the core of Anderson’s poetics is a constant movement between the United Kingdom and the Caribbean — places he inhabits both physically and mentally. Born in Birmingham to Jamaican parents, the artist channels the complexity of diasporic experience into his painting: the condition of “being in one place while thinking about another,” suspended between belonging, distance and memory. Colour-saturated landscapes, enigmatic interiors, layers of light and visual barriers create worlds in which time bends and memory becomes painterly matter.

The exhibition opens with early photographs and drawings that reconstruct the artist’s family environment. Works such as Bev (1995) and Hollywood Boulevard (1997) already reveal his interest in merging past and present, crafting images where identity emerges as a shifting, evolving process. The path continues with a selection from the Ball Watching series (1997–2003), in which Anderson overlaps places and memories, transforming an everyday scene from Birmingham into a tropical landscape. Painting becomes a space of slippage — where memories contradict, fracture and reinvent themselves.

Shear Cut, 2024. (c) Hurvin Anderson. Courtesy the artist and Thomas Dane Gallery. Photo Richard Ivey

A key section is devoted to the barbershops, iconic subjects in Anderson’s research. Initiated in the 2000s, the series captures community spaces central to the history of Caribbean immigrants in England: sites of gathering, care and shared identity. Historic works dialogue with recent pieces such as Skiffle and Shear Cut (2023), highlighting the continuity of an imagined world that evolves without ever severing its roots.

Among the most anticipated works is Passenger Opportunity (2024–25), a monumental piece inspired by two murals in Kingston’s airport, here re-presented in a new form reflecting on migratory flows between Jamaica and Britain. Alongside, the Welcome series and the paintings of abandoned Jamaican hotels return the artist to the landscapes of his origins, exploring dynamics of access, exclusion and social stratification through grids, fences and visual obstructions.

Hollywood Boulevard, 1997. (c) Hurvin Anderson. Courtesy the artist and Thomas Dane Gallery. Photo Richard Ivey

The retrospective closes with Is It OK To Be Black? (2015–16), a powerful work addressing race relations through semi-abstract depictions of figures such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. Here Anderson questions the viewer’s position, inviting them into a dialogue that spans history, politics and representation.

Tate Britain

Millbank, London SW1P 4RG

Date

26 March – 23 August 2026

Impressionism and Beyond. Masterpieces from the Detroit Institute of Arts

From 4 December 2025 to 3 May 2026, the Museo dell’Ara Pacis hosts an extraordinary selection from the Detroit Institute of Arts, one of the most important museum institutions in the United States.

Pierre Auguste Renoir Donna in poltrona 1874 Detroit Institute of Arts Bequest of Mrs. Allan Shelden III 1985.24

 It is a rare opportunity to admire in Italy iconic paintings that trace the evolution of modern painting: from the Impressionists Degas and Renoir to the Post-Impressionist innovations of Cézanne and Van Gogh, to the Parisian revolutions of Matisse and Picasso, and the German Expressionism of Kandinsky, Pechstein and Beckmann.

Curated by Ilaria Miarelli Mariani and Claudio Zambianchi, the exhibition reconstructs a historical journey that spans more than fifty years of decisive artistic transformation. It begins in the mid-19th century, when French painters broke away from academic codes to focus on modern life, urban scenes and natural light. Works by Degas, Cézanne and Renoir narrate this epochal shift—an artistic renewal that redefined the relationship between perception, reality and representation.

The exhibition then moves on to the innovations of the next generation, who, after the final Impressionist exhibition in 1886, sought a new formal solidity and an autonomous use of colour. Van Gogh’s vibrant, psychologically charged brushwork, Cézanne’s rigorous construction and Renoir’s reimagining of tradition mark a progression toward modernism. It is during this period that the idea—championed by Roger Fry—emerges of an artwork as an autonomous harmony, independent from the visible world.

Henri Matisse Finestra 1916 Detroit Institute of Arts City of Detroit Purchase 22.14

The central section of the exhibition is dedicated to Paris in the early decades of the 20th century, the global capital of artistic experimentation. The six works by Picasso illustrate the evolution of the master from the Rose Period to Cubism, while Matisse’s paintings testify to his shift from geometric structure to a freer, more sensuous pictorial language. Alongside them, the Cubism of Juan Gris and María Blanchard, together with the expressive force of Modigliani and Soutine, offers a rich and complex panorama.

The exhibition concludes with a significant selection of works from the German avant-garde. Paintings by Kandinsky, Pechstein, Feininger and Emil Nolde reveal the tensions, anxieties and radical experiments that defined German art before and after the war. Beckmann’s powerful Self-Portrait of 1945 conveys the profound uncertainty of the post-war period, making clear the emotional force of Expressionist painting.

Camille Pissarro Il sentiero 1889 Detroit Institute of Arts, City of Detroit Purchase 21.34

Impressionism and Beyond is not only a journey through modernity but also an opportunity to discover the richness of American collections and to reflect on the evolution of the European pictorial language. The exhibition is also designed with inclusivity in mind: multisensory visits, workshops, subtitled LIS videos and tactile experiences ensure accessibility for all, confirming the commitment of the Sovrintendenza Capitolina to making museums open, participatory spaces.

Museo dell'Ara Pacis

Lungotevere in Augusta (angolo via Tomacelli) - 00186 Roma

Date

4 dicembre 2025 – 3 maggio 2026