Isabella Pakszwer Far Bequest. Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris

On 20 October 2011, the Isabella Pakszwer Far Bequest of 61 artworks by Giorgio de Chirico to the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris was finalised during a formal signing ceremony held at the Mairie in Paris, in the presence of Bertrand Delanoë, Mayor of Paris and Paolo Picozza, President of Fondazione Giorgio e Isa de Chirico. The Bequest was an initiative of Giorgio de Chirico’s widow Isabella in recognition of the important role that the city of Paris played in the artist’s personal and professional life.

The donation, which comprises of 30 paintings, 20 drawings and 11 sculptures, presents major themes of the Maestro’s Art, with the Italian Piazza, the Metaphysical Interior, the Archaeologists and the Gladiators, as well as the imaginative themes of the Mysterious Baths and the Suns. Representative of the Maestro’s research in painting technique are a number of self-portraits, including a double-portrait of husband and wife and a beautiful nude of Isabella, two still-lifes and paintings from the classic Horses by the Seashore theme.

The complete group of works will be presented in an exhibition to be inaugurated on 10 November and will continue through to the summer of 2012. A permanent room dedicated to Giorgio de Chirico will then be opened in the museum in which these works will be exhibited on a rotational basis.

The initiative follows Giorgio de Chirico – La Fabrique des Rêves, the large retrospective held at the museum in the spring of 2009, an exhibition strongly supported by Fabrice Hergott and curated by Jacqueline Munck, on which occasion great public interest was shown.

Speech by Paolo Picozza, President, Fondazione Giorgio e Isa de Chirico (in French)