Housed in
the Villino Andersen designed in the years 1922/1925 by the architect,
sculptor and painter Hendrik Christian Andersen
(1872/1940) who painted the frescos on the first floor
He was born
in Norway and raised in the United States. He lived in Rome for forty-four
years until his death
Andersen
left everything to the Italian State and the museum is open to the public since
1998
It
constitutes, with the Manzù Museum Collection at Ardea, the Museo
Praz and the Boncompagni Ludovisi Museum,
one of the institutions linked to the National Gallery of Modern Art
The
collection includes more than 200 sculptures, of which forty large ones
in plaster and bronze, more than 200 paintings, more than 350 graphic
works, photographs and a library
On the
ground floor there are two large exhibition rooms and the studio, on first
floor there is the apartment where the artist lived
Among the works:
Bronze
group of “Triumph of Washington and Lafayette” 1904/06
Plaster
sculpture “Jacob and the Angel” 1909/11
“Bust of Henry James (1843/1916)” 1907, American writer who was a
close friend of Andersen and also his lover, as explicitly shown by the letters
they exchanged
“The
collection is almost entirely centered on the idea of a great utopian 'World
City', destined to be the international headquarters of a permanent laboratory
of ideas in the arts, sciences, philosophy, religion, physical culture. To this
project and to its dissemination Andersen dedicated in 1913 with the French
architect Ernest Hébrard a ponderous volume (Creation of a World Centre of
Communication, available to read in the Museum) which, starting from the urban
concepts of ancient civilizations, should have indicated an approach to the new
and modern 'City'“ (Web site of the Museo Hendrik Christian Andersen)
The art of
Andersen represents an interesting and desperate yearning for peace, and
expressed the illusory confidence in human capabilities on the eve of the great
tragedies of the twentieth century caused by nationalism, which the artist
tries desperately and unsuccessfully to exorcise
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