The active relationship between Heritage Malta?s National Museum of Fine Arts and the Museo Civico of Taverna has been recently enriched with an exhibition project entitled Preti 10×10 Taverna-Preti-Malta. Ten works each by Maltese and Italian artists are currently on display in alternate venues in Calabria and Malta.
Paintings on display at the National Museum of Fine Arts have been purposely commissioned for this exhibition to a number of Calabrian artists by the Museo Civico di Taverna, with whom our National museum has enjoyed close working relationships for, at least, the past decade. Taverna is the birth place of Mattia Preti, whose forty-year stay in Malta in the second half of the seventeenth century left a decisive impact on art in Malta.
The Italian artists whose works are featured within this exhibition include Aldo Turchiaro, Francesco Guerrieri, Giovanni Marziano, Mario Parentela, Giovan Battista Rotella, Giuseppe Rocca, Pasquale Cerra, Antonio Saladino, Massimo Pulini and Valiero. Some of these are well known household names; three in particular have been invited to participate in this year?s edition of the Venice Biennale.
The paintings by Maltese artists on display in Taverna were almost exclusively selected from the national collection and relate, in a broad manner, to religious themes earlier on interpreted by Mattia Preti. These include works by Isabelle Borg, Madeleine Gera, Alfred Chircop, John Martin Borg, Anthony Spagnol, Antoine Camilleri, Pierre Portelli, Caesar Attard, Anton Agius and Joseph Casha. These paintings will remain on display in Taverna, Calabria, till September.
This is another project in a series that will lead to Heritage Malta’s commemoration of the 4th centenary from the birth of Mattia Preti, jointly with Taverna.?In 2002, the Museo Civico di Taverna hosted an exhibition of drawings by Mattia Preti from the National Collection. The National Museum of Fine Arts holds what is perhaps one of the most important collection of works by Mattia Preti on display in any public museum. Other collaboration initiatives include research projects on the Mattia Preti Collection, exchange of expertise and other collaboration initiatives.
The exhibition at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Valletta was inaugurated by the Hon. Parliamentary Secretary Dr Mario Demarco in the presence of his Excellency the Italian Ambassador Dott. Efigio Luigi Marras. It will run till the 5th of June. During the month of August the exhibition will re-open again at Heritage Malta?s Area Office in Gozo. Admission to the exhibition is free.
