Eugene Berman. Painting, theater and Modern Classicism
The Modern Classic retrospective at the MART in Rovereto offers a unified critical reading of the work of Eugene Berman, a key figure between metaphysical painting and twentieth-century theater. In this context, the Eugene Berman exhibition MART Rovereto places his work within a broader international framework, emphasizing the coherence of an artistic vision shaped by the dialogue between painting, theater, and classical memory.
More specifically, the exhibition traces the main phases of his career and reveals the continuity of a language grounded in architectural imagination and staged space.
Eugene Berman a 20th-Century Cosmopolitan
Eugene Berman’s artistic trajectory (Saint Petersburg, 1899 – Rome, 1972) unfolds as a profoundly cosmopolitan path, cultural as much as geographic. Born in Russia, trained in Paris, established in the United States, and ultimately settling in Rome, Berman moved through the principal centers of twentieth-century modernity without ever fully aligning himself with a single movement or school.
His cosmopolitanism was not a matter of stylistic eclecticism, but a critical position based on movement rather than belonging. Each geographical context became a site of reflection and transformation, contributing to the development of a coherent and autonomous artistic vision.
Paris and the European Avant-Gardes
Berman’s Paris years, between the late 1920s and the early 1930s, coincided with his direct engagement with the European avant-gardes. During this period, he absorbed surrealist and metaphysical influences, reworking them through a sensibility already oriented toward the architectural and theatrical construction of the image.
Paris functioned for Berman as a visual and intellectual laboratory rather than an ideological home. The city provided a context in which painting could be conceived as a staged space, anticipating the central role that theatricality would later assume in his work.
Rome, Theater, and Imaginary Architecture
Berman’s definitive move to Rome in 1958 initiated a phase of mature synthesis that lasted until his death in 1972.
After Paris and the United States, Rome became the place where his vision reached full stabilization.
This vision was rooted in theatrical space and in the reinvention of classical tradition.
In the postwar Roman context, Corrado Cagli played a decisive role in introducing Berman to the local exhibition circuit. More specifically, he supported his presence at the Galleria dell’Obelisco, a key venue for dialogue between Italian and international art.
During these years, Berman also engaged in dialogue with figures such as Alberto Savinio, Fabrizio Clerici, and Piero Fornasetti.
With them, he shared a reflection on myth, imaginary architecture, and the symbolic reinvention of the classical.
Rome thus emerges not as a simple biographical setting, but as a symbolic horizon in which past and modernity converge.
Works and Collections
Berman’s works are held in major international institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, Tate in London, and the Art Institute of Chicago. These are complemented by private collections and Paris-School archives documenting his early career.
Together, these collections attest to the coherence of a language capable of crossing geographic and disciplinary boundaries without losing poetic unity.
Eugene Berman. Modern Classic
The Eugene Berman. Modern Classic retrospective at MART Rovereto highlights Berman’s role as a key figure of an erudite and non-aligned modernity, capable of uniting classical memory with contemporary vision.
The title Modern Classic encapsulates his position within the twentieth century: a deeply modern artist who treated the classical not as a repertory to quote, but as a mental structure to reinvent. Through paintings, drawings, and scenographic materials, the exhibition restores Berman’s central role as a hinge between historical avant-gardes and modern visual culture.
The Eugene Berman exhibition MART thus offers a comprehensive reassessment of his work, framing his practice between painting, theater, and architectural imagination.