DAL DE RERUM NATURA ALLE MONTAGNE marks the public reopening of the spaces that once housed
the ceramics school founded by Marieda Di Stefano in 1962. This show, which explores the works by
Enrico Baj in the Boschi Di Stefano Collection, is the first in a series of special exhibitions that will be held
in this new project space connected to the museum.
SCUOLA DI CERAMICA JAN 15
In the 1950s, Marieda Di Stefano trained at the studio of Luigi Amigoni, a traditional Milanese sculptor who was the father of her best friend, Migno. There, she learned the craft and fell in love with ceramics.
In the early 1960s, on the ground floor of the building where Marieda lived and the museum is now located, she opened the “Jan 15” ceramics school, installing a kiln in the basement. The school drew students and aficionados, hosting exhibitions and artistic debates.
Upon her death in 1968, Migno Amigoni took over the reins of the school, heading it until she herself passed away in 2011. At that point, the school closed.
ENRICO BAJ, DAL DE RERUM NATURAE ALLE MONTAGNE
This exhibition presents Enrico Baj’s complete series inspired by the Latin poem De rerum natura by Titus Lucretius Carus, from which Antonio Boschi and Marieda Di Stefano owned one etching. De rerum natura is a set of 36 etchings that Baj made between 1952 and 1953, published in 1958 by Arturo Schwarz in a portfolio with an introduction by Roberto Sanesi.
Alongside these prints, the exhibition presents works by Baj from the collection: in particular, the ones from the Montagna series that the Boschis acquired in the 1950s, most likely from Galleria Blu in Milan. Today, these works are held by the Casa Museo Boschi Di Stefano and the Museo del Novecento.
The presence of both the De rerum natura prints and a sizeable number of Montagna works in the Boschi Collection hints at the collector couple’s growing interest in the Arte Nucleare movement over the course of the 1960s.