PADUA PALAZZO ZABARELLA FROM 1 OCTOBER 2016 TO 29 JANUARY 2017 L’IMPRESSIONISMO DI ZANDOMENEGHI 100 works reconstruct the artistic story of a leader in the extraordinary period of nineteenth-century Italian painting, a hundred years after his death. A painter of modern life, Federico Zandomeneghi (Venice 1841 – Paris 1917), extolled the

emancipated woman on the scintillating Paris scene between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,

depicted in various moments of everyday life, from the rite of the toilette to the promenade in the

Bois, from reading to society evenings at the theatre.

Palazzo Zabarella in Padua is devoting a big anthological exhibition to the Venetian master from 1

October 2016 to 29 January 2017, a hundred years after his death.

The exhibition, curated by Francesca Dini and Fernando Mazzocca and organised by the

Fondazione Bano, will present 100 works, comprising oil paintings and pastels, that retrace

Zandomeneghi’s extraordinary career from its beginnings. He was a leading figure in the move

from a committed naturalism, with pictures of social commentary, to a style able to very personally

interpret the new ideas of Impressionism.

Zandomeneghi set the facial features, the gestures and all the charm of the Belle Epoque on the

canvas with his unmistakable style and very refined use of pastel, creating the feminine image of

the Parisian woman. He was able to capture the charm and unique atmosphere of the squares and

boulevards and the social life that unfolded in the cafes and theatres of Paris, the city that welcomed

him and saw him as one of the triad of Italiens de Paris, along with Giovanni Boldini and Giuseppe

De Nittis.

The exhibition will reveal a genuine talent and an artistic personality until now not properly

appreciated, through paintings largely unknown to the wider public, from the most important and

prestigious public institutions - including the Galleria d’Arte Moderna Ricci Oddi, Piacenza, the

Galleria d’arte moderne di Palazzo Pitti, Florence and the Museo Civico di Palazzo Te, Mantua -

and the most exclusive Italian, English and French private collections.

Federico Zandomeneghi was from an artistic family. He had great natural and highly restrained

talent, but preferred painting to the family vocation that would have led him to sculpture. His

grandfather Luigi had been a close friend of Canova and his father Pietro had made the grandiose

Monument to Titian in the basilica of the Frari in Venice. He fled Venice to avoid being conscripted

into the Austrian army, after having followed Garibaldi in his expedition of the Mille, to Florence

(1862-66), where he associated with the Macchiaioli, becoming particularly friendly with the critic

Diego Martelli. In 1866 he returned to Venice, then, from 1874, settled in Paris where Zandò - as he

was usually known - came into contact with the Impressionists, particularly Degas and Renoir, and

became a leading figure, along with De Nittis and Boldini, in that extraordinary workshop of the so-

called ‘painting of modern life’. He exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants (1879, 1880, 1881,

1886) and, in the last years of the century, had a particularly fruitful relationship with the dealer

Duran-Ruel. A solo exhibition at the Venice Biennale in 1914 did not have the anticipated success

and only after 1922 did his art gain proper recognition.

Padua, May 2016

ZANDOMENEGHI. Dalla Venezia di Canova alla Parigi degli Impressionisti Padua, Palazzo Zabarella (via degli Zabarella, 14) 1 OCTOBER 2016 - 29 JANUARY 2017 Information tel. 049.8753100 info@palazzozabarella.it www.zabarella.it Press office CLP Relazioni Pubbliche Anna Defrancesco tel. 02 36 755 700 anna.defrancesco@clponline.it www.clponline.it