Great changes in the air are evident in many of the 135 works on show in Sperone Westwater Gallery’s exhibition Painting in Italy, 1910s-1950s: Futurism, Abstraction, Concrete Art (30 October-22 December). In a catalogue essay, the art historian Maria Antonella Pelizzari writes that Italian Modern art of the 1930s was almost contradictory in the way it “aspired to a new aesthetics” and “looked to the radicalism of European avant-gardes” while remaining “grounded in a classical past”. Typical of the ways in which artists blended influences and styles is Composizione (1937) by Manlio Rho, which skilfully weaves Italian Futurism and abstraction. The show aims to introduce new audiences to works from the period, which the co-founder of the gallery, Gian Enzo Sperone, says are currently undervalued. Around 120 works are on offer for between $30,000 and $150,000; the most expensive, Giacomo Balla’s 1914 painting Linea di Velocita Astratta (abstract speed lines), has an asking price of $1.2m.
