On the centenary of the birth of Sergio Vacchi (1925–2016), the Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte celebrates one of the most heretical and visionary figures of 20th-century Italian painting. A solitary and unconventional artist, Vacchi remained on the margins of dominant movements, loyal to a poetic vision grounded in new emotional dimensions, achieved through a deep and ongoing exploration of his own psyche. From his early still lifes to the gestural informality of the 1950s, through the return to figuration in the 1960s and the emergence of metaphysical tensions, his painting tells a story of the constant dialectic between eros and matter, history and myth, reason and vision. In Rome, in contact with intellectuals such as Guttuso, Fellini, and Volponi, he developed large pictorial cycles dedicated to Frederick II, Galileo Galilei, and the Second Vatican Council—reflections on power, knowledge, and freedom of artistic expression. Vacchi’s works have captivated art lovers and collectors alike, including Sophia Loren, who was photographed for Architectural Digest at the entrance of her Florida home, holding a cup of coffee beneath her portrait painted by Sergio Vacchi. In his later decades, having retired to Tuscany at the Castle of Grotti—now home to the foundation that bears his name—Vacchi created pictorial cycles of great symbolic power. His canvases remain a testament to art as moral resistance, capable of unveiling our inescapable inner turmoil.

The exhibition will be open from November 6, 2025, to January 27, 2026.

Sergio Vacchi was born in Castenaso near Bologna on April 1, 1925, and is considered one of the most original voices in post-war Italian painting. From the very beginning, he showed a personal inclination toward an intense and dramatic figuration, which earned him the support of critic Francesco Arcangeli. Moving from Expressionism to Informal Art, and later to large figurative cycles exploring power, myth, and knowledge, his work blends vision, unease, and poetry. From 1996 until his death in 2016, he lived and worked at the Castle of Grotti (Siena), which is now home to the Foundation named after him.

Eike Schmidt has held positions at major international institutions since 1995, including the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, and Sotheby’s in London. From 2009 to 2015, he was curator at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and then Director of the Uffizi Galleries until 2023. Since 2024, he has been Director of the Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte in Naples. In parallel, he has been active in academic and administrative fields, holding posts at the Humboldt University in Berlin, the Fondo Edifici di Culto, and the Igor Mitoraj Museum Foundation.

Ursula Benvenuti, art historian, is the Secretary General of the Sergio Vacchi Foundation, officially recognized by the Region of Tuscany since 1998. The Foundation is based in the Castle of Grotti, a few kilometers from Siena, which was purchased by the artist in 1996. The venue is well-suited for hosting both national and international exchanges: it consists of the splendid castle and several adjacent buildings, some of which serve as accommodations, allowing for the hosting of scholars from foreign universities and academies.