In 1900, Italy was the yougest country in Western Europe. Having been united only four decades prior, it was still searching for a national artistic identity and was struggling to be recognized by neighboring nations such as England, France, Austria-Hungary and Germany. Nonetheless, all of this changed in less than fifteen years and by the time World War I began, Italy had risen to reclaim its righful position as a leading country in the Art World. One movement had restored balance : Art Nouveau.

Often referred to as ‘Stile Floreale’, ‘Stile Liberty’ or even ‘Stile Modern’, what we call Italian Art Nouveau was a variety of styles, regional expressions, and distinct personal creative identities. Cultural diversity, which had been a great obstacle to Italian unification, became an incredible asset and Italy thrived on this richness of influences and movements, in a similar way to Germany and the United Kingdom where regional art schools and guilds were strongly encouraged (Darmstadt, Birmingham, Munich, Glasgow or the Cotswolds) but unlike France and Austria-Hungary for example, where most of the new art and artists inevitably found its way to Paris and Vienna...

While Milan and Turin were undisputably two of the most important places for Italian Art Nouveau, especially after the groundbreaking ‘Prima Exposizione d’Arte Decorativa moderna’ in Turin in 1902, they were rivalled by several amazing schools and artists in Tuscany, Sicily, Campania and Veneto. Designers such as Carlo Bugatti who became internationaly famous in Milan or Giuseppe Parvis who exported Italian craftsmanship from Turin to Cairo and Istanbul both found their creative match in Giuseppe Viner, the pioneer of Tuscan divisionist painting, Carlo Rizzarda, later called ‘the poet of wrought iron’ or Almerico Gargiulo who perpetuated on the Amalfi Coast the excellence of marquetry and inspirations of Pompeii.

This year at TEFAF, the Oscar Graf Gallery is honored to present an important selection of furniture and works of art which illustrate the incredible variety and beauty that allowed Italy to enter the twentieth century as one of Europe’s greats...