«Viaggiatori appassionati. Elihu Vedder e altri paesaggi» is this Siena town exhibition's title. A selection of about 70 paintings of Vedder landscape production, a topic that is constantly re-offered by the American artist, with views and glimpses of San Gimignano, Volterra, Florence, Liguria and Umbria landscapes.

The works of Elihu Vedder, an artist that is almost unknown in Italy but considered among the most representative artists in the States, are shown for the first time in an Italian exhibiting seat: after San Gimignano, they will be transferred to Rome in the Galleria di arte moderna of the H.C. Andersen museum, starting on the 15th October.

The propensity to depict landscapes starts in Vedder precisely during his first stay in Florence, when, around 1857 he moves to the Tuscan capital, where he starts attending the Accademia Galli and studies in more depth pictorial technique.

During those years he visits the Caffè Michelangelo, a meeting place for many painters of the Macchiaoli current, where he comes into contact with some of the major representatives of the pictorial current. So he starts drawing en plein air favouring a basic and flat construction of the landscape where symbolic elements appear almost casually inserted in the landscape.

Vedder belongs to that kind of travelling painters, American artists who have chosen as their «obliged» destination for their formation a period of knowledge and in-depth study of art in Italy, the cradle of art.

Viaggiatori appassionati. Elihu Vedder e altri paesaggi
Where: Museo ex Conservatorio di S. Chiara - via Folgòre da San Gimignano n.11 San Gimignano
When: 29 June till 29 September
Opening times: everyday 11 am to 5.30 pm
Tickets: cumulative ticket for entry to the cities civic museums 7,50 euro, conc. 5,50 euro.
Information: +39 0577 940 348

August.2002

Municipality of San Gimignano (In Italian)
Pro Loco San Gimignano (In Italian)
Elihu Vedder