VENICE.- On the occasion of the 61st Venice Biennale, the Istituzione Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, with the collaboration and support of the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, presents Picasso, Morandi, Parmiggiani: Still Lifes, an exhibition initiated and organized by Tornabuoni Art, with the exceptional participation of the Musée national Picasso- Paris, and curated by Cécile Debray, President of the museum.

The exhibition takes place from May 7 to July 25, 2026, at the Galleria di Piazza San Marco, the main venue of the Istituzione Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa.

Three masters of modern art, three distinct approaches to the object. Drawing from a focused and carefully curated selection of still lifes by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964), and Claudio Parmiggiani (b. 1943), the exhibition opens a dialogue on representation itself, capturing and mediating reality through the staging of objects within the laboratory of the artist’s studio.

From Picasso’s bricolage, assemblages and deconstructions, which develop a new pictorial language while reviving the subject of memento mori and Morandi’s surprising and serial compositions of ordinary bottles arranged and rear- ranged on the shelves of the artist’s studio as timeless and metaphysical motifs, to Parmiggiani’s works—smokesha- dows of objects—all are reflections on absence and disappearance, offering a contemporary reinterpretation of the Vanitas genre.

Fourteen masterpieces from the Musée national Picasso-Paris are on view, retracing the Spanish master’s investigation of the object from Cubism through to the 1950s. They are shown alongside an equal number of paintings by Morandi from prestigious public and private collections in Italy and abroad.

Among them, a 1914 Cubist still life—a singular masterpiece from the collections of the Centre Pompidou—marks a striking first point of convergence between the two painters. Alongside these works from public collections are several rediscoveries, including a rarely exhibited Morandi painting from 1945–46, which the artist presented at the 1962 Biennale and which returns to Venice for the first time. Also on view is a group of objects from Morandi’s studio—carafes, vases, dried flowers exhibited for the first time to offer a moving glimpse into the intimate space of the artist’s studio and shed light on his distinctive creative process in constructing his motif (objects collected, repainted, and arranged with great precision).

Parmiggiani frequented Morandi’s studio during his studies, and an undeniable spiritual affinity links the two artists, most notably through the Delocazioni. The artist created a monumental Delocazione specifically for the exhibition. Several sculptures from the artist’s studio trace the full arc of his practice from the 1970s onwards. These works— assemblages, reliefs, and sculptures—resonate both with the themes and with the processes at work in Picasso’s œuvre.

Through poetic and formal correspondences between the works, the curator invites visitors on a contemplative journey through the still life as a pictorial genre, opening up a reflection on time, reality, and art, as well as on the work of three major artists, past and present.

Following the exhibitions dedicated to Alighiero Boetti, Emilio Isgrò, and Alberto Burri, organized by Tornabuoni Art at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini in 2017 and 2019, this thematic exhibition continues the trajectory of On Fire (2022), which for the first time brought together six modern and contemporary masters around the theme of fire as a means of creation.

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue published by Forma Edizioni and edited by Cécile Debray, assisted by Elizabeth de Bertier (Tornabuoni Art). It will include essays by Cécile Debray, Lorenzo Balbi, Director of Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna (MAMbo), and Bruno Corà, President of Fondazione Burri.