Museums in ROME
Italian Museums
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National Gallery of Modern Art
Hotels National Gallery of Modern Art
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ROME Viale delle Belle Arti, 131 |
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Opening time: Tues. to Sat. 9-19 • closed Mon.
Admission charge: Lit. 8,000 public property HISTORY AND SITE The museum was established in 1881 as a response to the ever-growing interest of the public in contemporary art. In 1883 the Palazzo delle Esposizioni (Exhibition Palace), expressely built for the occasion by Pio Piacentini, housed the first exhibition held in Rome as Capital City. The exhibition became subsequently a permanent one, to which donations and new acquisitions were added, so that the Palazzo delle Esposizioni eventually became inadequate for the collection. In 1911, Cesare Bazzani built in Valle Giulia the Palazzo delle Arti (Palace of Arts), where the Exhibition for the Silver Jubilee of the Unification of Italy was held, and the contemporary art collections were relocated in 1915. An additional floor was added to the building in 1934 in order to celebrate the decennial of the Fascist regime; the new section was to house works from official exhibitions such as the Biennial of Venice and the Quadriennial of Rome. A new enlargment was started in the 1970s and is still in progress. THE COLLECTIONS The Gallery was originally intended only to house art works by Italian artists. It was only after the international exhibition held in Rome in 1911, the Biennial of Venice of 1913 and the exhibition of the Roman "Secessions" in 1913 and 1916, that the need for a more international approach started to arise. Works by several European artists were added to the original nucleus, among which Three Ages, a painting by Gustav Klimt, and Bronze Age, a sculpture by Auguste Rodin; Italian pieces were also added, either through purchases or donations, and today the collections numbers about 5,000 painting and sculpture works, as well as 12,000 graphical works. |
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