March 28, 2024

The Embassy of Italy/Italian Cultural Institute, in collaboration with Regione Lombardia, Associazione Giuseppe e Gina Flangini, and Associazione Colosseum Roma, presents the opening of the exhibit Flangini & Minnelli – Il Cinema Dipinto.

On the occasion of the opening, Maestro Stefano Gueresi will perform at the piano his compositions inspired by Flangini’s paintings and a series of ceramics by Claudio Cipriani will also be on display.

ON VIEW: At the Italian Embassy where the Italian Cultural Institute is currently located | By appt. (Mon-Fri:10am-12pm/2pm-4pm), Reservations at iicwashington@esteri.it

During the filming of the movie Lust for Life (winner, among many other awards, of a Golden Globe and an Oscar in 1957), which Vincente Minnelli shot in Belgium in 1955 on the life of Van Gogh, Giuseppe Flangini realized a wonderful storyboard, which comprised more than 50 works, including oils and drawings.

The exhibition The Painted Cinema presents for the first time to the American public the chance to see an extensive exhibit of these works. They are not only an exceptional testimony of the production work of the film (cast, scenes, actors), but of a place and a time in European history seen through the multi-faceted perspective of the time of Van Gogh and the production period of the film, through an American cinematographic insight and its reinterpretation by the estrus of an Italian painter: hence, a proof of the profound cultural synergy between both sides of the Atlantic.

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