BIAF: Booth 39

Richard Saltoun Gallery is delighted to announce its participation in the 33rd edition of BIAF - Biennale Internazionale dell'Antiquariato di Firenze, which will take place from September 28 to October 6 2024, at Palazzo Corsini, Florence.

BIAF is the oldest market exhibition in the world and one of the most significant events dedicated to Italian art on the international stage. This prestigious event will feature a carefully curated selection of antique and modern art, offering a comprehensive overview of Italian artistic tradition. 

Richard Saltoun Gallery is pleased to announce its inaugural presentation at BIAF 2024, with a booth dedicated to three Italian female artists: innovative minimalist Bice LAZZARI (1900-1981), pioneering ceramicist Franca MARANÒ (1920-2015), and renowned sculptor and painter Antonietta RAPHAËL (1895-1975). All three artists have played an instrumental role in shaping Post-war Italian art, and have been the subjects of important institutional solo exhibitions in the last 5 years. 

Often referred to as the ‘Agnes Martin of Italy’, Bice Lazzari began her training in Venice during the 1920s. As a woman, she was advised not to study art, but instead to become a designer. In 1935 she moved to Rome, receiving commissions from important figures like Gio Ponti and Carlo Scarpa. In the 1950s, she shifted her focus back to painting, starting to produce abstract compositions and exploring the gestural techniques of Arte Informale. Her transition from oil to acrylic paint in 1964 marked a turn towards hard-edge abstraction in the last 15 years of her life. She produced her most significant works during this later period, examples of which feature prominently in the gallery’s presentation at BIAF. Lazzari had recent institutional solo exhibitions at the Museo del Novecento, Florence (2019), Ca’ Pesaro, Venice (2022) and the Estorick Collection, London (2022). She will have a museum retrospective at The Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome in 2025.

Franca Maranò stands as a pioneering figure of the feminist avant-garde in Southern Italy. An avid anti-conformist, she was always in search of new techniques and languages, her oeuvre spanning ceramics, painting, and textiles. Her artistic career is closely linked to the twenty-year activity of Galleria Centrosei, founded in 1970 - a crucial institution that championed avant-garde practices in the visual arts in Southern Italy. The gallery’s presentation features some of the artist’s distinctive, large-scale abstract ceramic panels from the 1960s, loaded with a rich array of cultural references. These works were described poignantly by the art historian, Pietro Marino, as: “[…] a crossing point between the primal expressiveness of the material, typical of the Arte Informale movement of some years ago, and the construction of the gesture, full of tensions and balances. […] They resemble the magical symbolism of Aztec or Mayan reliefs [...]”. 

Born in Lithuania in 1895, Antonietta Raphaël moved to Rome in 1924 to attend the Academy of Fine Arts. There, she met artist Mario Mafai, her lifelong partner in both life and work, with whom she founded the influential Scuola Romana (‘Roman School’) art movement. Raphaël is renowned for her vigorously anti-academic approach, particularly in sculpture. This became the main focus of her practice after World War II, earning her wide institutional acclaim both in Italy and internationally. Following her husband’s death in 1965 however, the artist felt compelled to turn from sculpture to painting. The gallery’s presentation will shine a new light on her late paintings from the 1960s, characterised by dynamic, figurative storytelling, and a vibrant colour palette. A highlight, Er e Tamar (1967), depicts a famous scene from the Old Testament, of Er’s brother, Onan, performing coitus interruptus with his dead brother’s wife, Tamar, thus displeasing God, and being stricken to death. Raphaël recently had a major retrospective at The Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome (2021).