The Civic Pinacoteca di Como, in the Campo Campo space, celebrates the Carlo Grassi collection with the exhibition of eight portraits of the French artist woman Paul César Helleu Belonging to the collector Grassi and donated to the Civic Museums City by his wife, Nedda Mieli, in 1985 in memory of his son Gino, who died volunteer during the Second World War at only 18 years old.
Paul César Helleu (1859–1927) was a French painter and engraver of the Belle Époque, known above all for his Portraits of elegant and sophisticated womenoften of high society. His style has always distinguished himself for the use of fluid and delicate lines, with particular attention to the details of the faces, hair and clothing of his models. In his art Helleu managed to capture the essence and the female grace, Using soft colors and plays of light. His portraits convey, still today, a sense of refinement and intimacy, with great attention to detail and a strong aesthetic sensitivity.
The donation – exposed in the framework field from 8 March to 11 May With the curatorship of Veronica Vittani and Francesca Testoni – it is the result of the precious advice work e intermediation of the art historian Alberto Longti who understood its value early by calling Helleu “A virtuoso of the Belle époque of great descriptive and safe professionalism“And his works”Excellent for the consumed ability in the incision and grace of female subjects“.
The “Helleu style”, Distined by elegance, refinement and an unmistakable female grace, I was a huge success in Paris, London and New York. On the exhibition, the image of his wife Alice, a favorite model, immortalized in the only horizontal work of the series, is also located. In addition to the faces of a woman made with the Puntasecca technique, a portrait made by Boldini depicts Helleu himself and a plauzkoy chalk head, also portrait portrait of Helleu, in “scapigliata” style, are exhibited. As Longatti wrote “The set of works forms a small but enough
Significant staff of Helleu (…) “.
“One of the purposes that a museum must necessarily pursue is that of the constant memory of those who have contributed to building the city’s assets – states Veronica Vittanicurator of the Pinacoteca Civica – These donations, today as yesterday, are acts of infinite generosity, because they allow what is a few, to become for everyone forever. The small but precious selection of Helleu works in the Pinacoteca tells of a period of great changes, of an artist of style and beauty of his women, but it is also the story of a family who transformed the pain, into love towards the community. This is the great value of the assets kept in museums like ours “.
Retracing the historical stages, Carlo Grassi (1886-1950) was an industrialist of Italian origins, born in Greece and moved to Egypt at the end of the nineteenth century, where he became a well-known manufacturer and tobacco merchant. In 1918 he married Nedda Mieli, too‘It of Italian origins, and together they spent several periods in Italy. In addition to the residences of Rome and Milan, they possessed a vast estate, “Psalter”, in Lora, which in the 1940s was donated to the work Don Guanella of Como and today hosts Gino’s house. It was precisely this villa that became the seat of their vast collection of art, which included, among other things, Egyptian antiquities (donated in 1951 to the Vatican Museums), oriental art objects, graphics, and works by artists such as Manet, Van Gogh, Ensor, Cézanne, but also of the 19th century Italian, of divisionism, and the protagonists of the avant -garde (Boccioni), up to the artists). of the years between the two wars (Morandi, De Pisis, Tosi). This extraordinary collection was donated to the Municipality of Milan in 1956 and today is exhibited at the Gallery of Modern Art.
The donation to the Municipality of Como, by Nedda Mieli, took place in 1985, but the works arrived in the Pinacoteca only at the beginning of the 2000s. In 1982 Nedda Mieli Grassi was awarded the City of Como BULL Award as “Mother of the House of Gino” and in 1986 she was recognized as the Oro’s Abbondino, the utmost honor that the Municipality of Como reserve for her merits. Nedda Mieli, her husband Carlo Grassi and his son Gino rest in the chapel of the Madonna delle Grazie, inside the compendium of the house of Gino in Lora.
Carlo Franza