MUSEO CIVICO LUIGI MALLE’

Inaugurated in 1995, the Luigi Mallé Museum in Dronero is a cultural resource in Piedmont and part of the historical and artistic heritage of the town of Dronero, the main village on the slopes of the Maira Valley. The house in which the museum is located was the home of the Mallé family since the 18th century, and was donated by Luigi Mallé to the people of Dronero in 1976 with a testamentary bequest that included all the works from his personal collection. Luigi Mallé (Turin 1920 - 1979) was one of the protagonists of Piedmontese cultural and artistic life between the 1950s and 1970s. After a long career as curator of Turin's Civic Museums, in 1965 he took over as its director, promoting and curating important exhibitions, including those dedicated to Hans Hartung, Robert Motherwell, Lucio Fontana, Conceptual Art, Arte Povera and Land Art. The Luigi Mallé Civic Museum presents the permanent collection and temporary exhibitions set up on the first, second and third floors, accompanied by lecture programmes and supplemented by the private collections on deposit (Collezione Berra and Collezione Crema), together with educational programmes for schools and collaborations with local cultural bodies. Of particular value is the permanent collection, subdivided by historical periods, from the 16th to the 20th century, with thematic nuclei on portraits and landscapes, alongside a select nucleus of works from the Dutch and Flemish schools of the 17th century and some masters of Piedmontese Baroque such as Charles Dauphin and Giovanni Battista Crosato, but with a temporal extension that reaches the masters of 20th century Europe: Lucio Fontana, Graham Sutherland, Julio Gonzales. Works that a recent and innovative digital video animation project allows us to discover in an unprecedented formula. Paintings, sculptures, refined Meissen ceramics, art nouveau Gallé and Daum vases, historical photographs, rococo prints, drawings and furnishings, indicate in a rapid synthesis the epochs and artistic styles of which Luigi Mallé was a tireless historian and explorer and who, with a far-sighted patronage project, wished to share their most important values, of culture and beauty, with the entire community that has become their heir and guardian.