The “Cesare Tallone. Ritratti di società” exhibition will be presented to the public on 15 June at 20.30 in the Sala degli Affreschi. Society portraits, dedicated to the painter Cesare Tallone, director of the Carrara Academy in Bergamo from 1885 to 1899, an important innovator and internationally renowned portraitist. The exhibition will be available from 1 July to 1 October 2023 at the Galleria Tadini.

Over forty artworks will be exhibited, many of which unpublished, from prestigious public collections in Bergamo (Accademia Carrara, Fondazione MIA – Opera Pia Misericordia Maggiore), Brescia (Pinacoteca Tosio Martinengo), Piacenza, Galleria Ricci Oddi), from the FAI (Bergamo, Palazzo Moroni) and from private collections, with the aim of restoring the artist’s journey during the Bergamo period, but with a focus on the activity carried out in Lovere, never investigated so far.

In the lively cultural climate that characterized the end of the nineteenth century, Tallone became the interpreter capable of responding, through the renewal of portraiture, to the representation needs of a community that was moving towards a new modernity. His works – including still lifes and landscapes – will be placed in relation with other forms of representation, in particular photography and architectural drawing, which in many cases take on the value of important testimonies of collecting and the social relationships that animate the society between Bergamo and Lovere in the last quarter of the century.

Text and cover image credits: Accademia Tadini