The exhibition brings to Riga over 70 Uffizi masterpieces. Opening ceremony with Mayor Kleinbergs.
The exhibition Light from Italy: from Fattori to Morandi was inaugurated on the afternoon of July 4 at the Latvian National Museum of Art in Riga. It brings to the Latvian capital 74 masterpieces of Italian painting from the 19th and 20th centuries, on loan from the Uffizi Galleries in Florence.
The opening ceremony was attended by the Ambassador of Italy to Latvia, Alessandro Monti, and the newly elected Mayor of Riga, Viesturs Kleinbergs. In his remarks, Ambassador Monti highlighted the importance of the exhibition in the broader context of Italy–Latvia relations, as a notable example of Italian cultural diplomacy. “Dialogue, exchange and mutual growth are the principles that guide our efforts to promote Italy,” Ambassador Monti underlined. “And the simultaneous presence this summer in Riga of two major exhibitions from Palazzo Madama in Turin and the Uffizi Galleries in Florence is a clear sign of the vitality of cultural relations between Italy and Latvia.”
Light from Italy sets the works of Fattori, Morandi and other Italian masters in dialogue with the Latvian tradition. The exhibition project was curated by an Italian–Latvian team composed of Guicciardo Sassoli de’ Bianchi Strozzi (Nuova Artemarea), Vanessa Gavioli and Elena Marconi (Palazzo Pitti), and Astrīda Rogule (Latvian National Museum of Art). In addition to the Embassy of Italy in Riga, the exhibition counts among its strategic partners the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia, the Riga City Council and Rietumu Banka. A trilingual catalogue has been published by Treccani to accompany the show, including a foreword by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of Italy, Antonio Tajani.
The exhibition will remain open until November 30, 2025. Its inauguration follows by a few weeks the opening of this year’s other major Italian exhibition in Riga, Palazzo Madama: Arts and Crafts from Italy from the 6th to the 19th Century, currently on display at the Art Museum Riga BOURSE. Over the past three years, the Embassy of Italy in Riga has organized around 150 cultural and integrated promotion initiatives across Latvia, in cooperation with both Italian and Latvian partners.
Photo credit: Kristine Madjare (LNMM)
