The Galleria Nazionale’s sizable collection of works by Giacomo Balla owes to the enlightened generosity of his daughters, appreciative of the museum’s effort as early as 1971 to organize a major retrospective of their father’s work, which catalyzed newfound interest in Balla’s contribution to half a century of Italian art and his centrality to the Futurist movement.
The 35 paintings donated by Elica and Luce Balla in 1984 (with paperwork finalized in 1988) filled in gaps in the Galleria’s collection with masterpieces such as La pazza (1905, from Polittico dei viventi) and Affetti (1910), as well as key works from his Futurist period that the Galleria had lacked until then—notably two tablets from Compenetrazioni iridescenti (1912), studies on velocity, Dimostrazioni interventiste (1915), spiritualist paintings from the 1920s, and works from his final figurative period which at the time had received little attention.
When Luce Balla died in 1994, she left the Galleria another set of works, designating Maurizio Fagiolo dell’Arco to select from among paintings, drawings and studies. Finalized in 1998, the bequest brought in treasures such as the sketch Appunti dal vero for the painting Fallimento (1902), Ritmi di un violinista (1912) and the design for Villa Borghese. Parco dei Daini, the large polyptych purchased in 1962 by Ambassador Cosmelli.
Curated by Stefania Frezzotti, this Galleria Nazionale show is the first time the works from both donations are being displayed as one, providing the opportunity for an elemental yet effective re-interpretation of Balla’s legacy using works representative of various milestones: from his pioneering phase at the turn of the century, when Balla identified the language of modernity in Divisionism and photography, through his studies of movement and velocity, decorative motifs and applied arts, to a lengthy period immersed in his own personal realism and in revisiting his earlier themes of Roman landscapes, portraits and family life.
In the complexity of this trailblazer’s long and varied career, we find a connecting thread in the value of light—its dissolution and reassembly in space and movement—as the lifeblood of the visual image. This explains the Galleria’s decision to name the exhibition after Balla’s 1943 painting Un’onda
di luce, a play on words referring to natural or artificial light and to the name of his elder daughter.