The Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art is a collection of paintings, graphic art and sculptures in the

Vatican Museums The Vatican Museums ( it, Musei Vaticani; la, Musea Vaticana) are the public museums of the Vatican City. They display works from the immense collection amassed by the Catholic Church and the papacy throughout the centuries, including several of ...

. It occupies 55 rooms: the

Borgia Apartment The Borgia Apartments are a suite of rooms in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican, adapted for personal use by Pope Alexander VI (Rodrígo de Borgia). In the late 15th century, he commissioned the Italian painter Bernardino di Betto (Pinturicchi ...

(apartment of

Pope Alexander VI Pope Alexander VI ( it, Alessandro VI, va, Alexandre VI, es, Alejandro VI; born Rodrigo de Borja; ca-valencia, Roderic Llançol i de Borja ; es, Rodrigo Lanzol y de Borja, lang ; 1431 – 18 August 1503) was head of the Catholic Churc ...

) on the first floor of the

Apostolic Palace The Apostolic Palace ( la, Palatium Apostolicum; it, Palazzo Apostolico) is the official residence of the pope, the head of the Catholic Church, located in Vatican City. It is also known as the Papal Palace, the Palace of the Vatican and t ...

, the two floors of the Salette Borgia, a series of rooms below the

Sistine Chapel The Sistine Chapel (; la, Sacellum Sixtinum; it, Cappella Sistina ) is a chapel in the Apostolic Palace, the official residence of the pope in Vatican City. Originally known as the ''Cappella Magna'' ('Great Chapel'), the chapel takes its nam ...

, and a series of rooms on the ground floor. Approximately 250 artists created over 500 pieces that are displayed in the Borgia Apartments. The Collection was officially introduced to the public on June 23, 1973. A permanent contemporary art gallery was installed on the premises in November 2021.

Collection

The collection consists of almost 800 works by 250 international artists including:

Francis Bacon Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), also known as Lord Verulam, was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Bacon led the advancement of both ...

Giacomo Balla Giacomo Balla (18 July 1871 – 1 March 1958) was an Italian painter, art teacher and poet best known as a key proponent of Futurism. In his paintings he depicted light, movement and speed. He was concerned with expressing movement in his works, ...

, Ernst Barlach, Max Beckmann, Émile Bernard,

Bernard Buffet Bernard Buffet (; 10 July 1928 – 4 October 1999) was a French painter, printmaker, and sculptor. He produced a varied and extensive body of work. His style was exclusively figurative. The artist enjoyed worldwide popularity early in his caree ...

Alice Lok Cahana Alice Lok Cahana (February 7, 1929 – November 28, 2017) was a Hungarian Holocaust survivor. Lok Cahana was a teenage inmate in the Auschwitz-Birkenau, Guben and Bergen-Belsen camps: her most well-known works are her writings and abstract paint ...

Marc Chagall Marc Chagall; russian: link=no, Марк Заха́рович Шага́л ; be, Марк Захаравіч Шагал . (born Moishe Shagal; 28 March 1985) was a Russian-French artist. An early modernism, modernist, he was associated with se ...

Eduardo Chillida Eduardo Chillida Juantegui, or Eduardo Txillida Juantegi in Basque (10 January 1924 – 19 August 2002), was a Spanish Basque sculptor notable for his monumental abstract works. Early life and career Born in San Sebastián (Donostia) to Ped ...

Giorgio de Chirico Giuseppe Maria Alberto Giorgio de Chirico ( , ; 10 July 1888 – 20 November 1978) was an Italian artist and writer born in Greece. In the years before World War I, he founded the '' scuola metafisica'' art movement, which profoundly infl ...

Salvador Dalí Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí of Púbol (; ; ; 11 May 190423 January 1989) was a Spanish Surrealism, surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, and the striking and bizarr ...

Maurice Denis Maurice Denis (; 25 November 1870 – 13 November 1943) was a French painter, decorative artist, and writer. An important figure in the transitional period between impressionism and modern art, he is associated with ''Les Nabis'', symbolism, a ...

Otto Dix Wilhelm Heinrich Otto Dix (; 2 December 1891 – 25 July 1969) was a German painter and printmaker, noted for his ruthless and harshly realistic depictions of German society during the Weimar Republic and the brutality of war. Along with George ...

Paul Gauguin Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (, ; ; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French Post-Impressionist artist. Unappreciated until after his death, Gauguin is now recognized for his experimental use of colour and Synthetist style that were distinct fr ...

, Renato Guttuso,

Wassily Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (; rus, Василий Васильевич Кандинский, Vasiliy Vasilyevich Kandinskiy, vɐˈsʲilʲɪj vɐˈsʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ kɐnʲˈdʲinskʲɪj; – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter a ...

Paul Klee Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented ...

Oskar Kokoschka Oskar Kokoschka (1 March 1886 – 22 February 1980) was an Austrian artist, poet, playwright, and teacher best known for his intense expressionistic portraits and landscapes, as well as his theories on vision that influenced the Viennese Expres ...

, Alfred Manessier,

Giacomo Manzù Giacomo Manzù, pseudonym of Giacomo Manzoni (22 December 1908 – 17 January 1991), was an Italian sculptor. Biography Manzù was born in Bergamo. His father was a shoemaker. Other than a few evening art classes, he was self-taught in s ...

, Giorgio Morandi,

Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

Odilon Redon Odilon Redon (born Bertrand Redon; ; 20 April 18406 July 1916) was a French symbolist painter, printmaker, draughtsman and pastellist. Early in his career, both before and after fighting in the Franco-Prussian War, he worked almost exclusivel ...

Auguste Rodin François Auguste René Rodin (12 November 184017 November 1917) was a French sculptor, generally considered the founder of modern sculpture. He was schooled traditionally and took a craftsman-like approach to his work. Rodin possessed a uniqu ...

Georges Rouault Georges Henri Rouault (; 27 May 1871, Paris – 13 February 1958) was a French painter, draughtsman and print artist, whose work is often associated with Fauvism and Expressionism. Childhood and education Rouault was born in Paris into a po ...

Maurice Utrillo Maurice Utrillo (), born Maurice Valadon; 26 December 1883 – 5 November 1955), was a French painter of the School of Paris who specialized in cityscapes. Born in the Montmartre quarter of Paris, France, Utrillo is one of the few famous pain ...

Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inc ...

, and

Henri Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known prim ...

. The majority of these works of art were donated by artists and collectors to the Holy See. The collection combines works that are "surrealist, cubist, post-impressionist, and expressionist." In 2011, Matisse's son, Pierre, donated to the Vatican Museum. As a result, Matisse has his own room in the Vatican, containing a set of Catholic liturgical vestments called chasubles from Vence. Other notable works include Vincent Van Gogh's ''Pietà'' and

's wooden relief. In the same room, post-Impressionist sculptor Merdardo Rosso created a wax work known as Aetas Aurea. Francis Bacon created a piece detailing Pope Innocent X. Auguste Rodin's aquatints and a ''Hand of God'' cast are also displayed in the Vatican. Another room in the Vatican is dedicated to Marino Marini, a modernist Italian sculptor. Many of the donations in the Vatican came from private collectors and families, and Marini's wife, Marina, donated many of his pieces to the Vatican. His distinctly religious works are a bronze crucifix called ''Crocifisso'', a relief sculpture titled ''Crocifissione'', and a bust of a juggler, ''Giocoliere.'' The art of Gentili Guttuso, another Italian painter, occupies the eighth room of the Vatican Collection. His work is much more figurative than Marini's, focusing on religious subject matter but represented through an avante-garde style of abstraction. His work, similar to other artists featured, is somewhat surrealist. The prehistory of the Collection of Modern Religious Art begun with the homily of Pope

Paul VI Pope Paul VI ( la, Paulus VI; it, Paolo VI; born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini, ; 26 September 18976 August 1978) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City, Vatican City State from 21 June 1963 to his ...

during his encounter with artists in the

on May 7, 1964. The Pope expressed an ambition to link the Church to contemporary art in order to bridge the past and present. Pope

inaugurated the Collection of Modern Religious Art in 1973.Speech of Pope Paul VI on the occasion of the Inauguration of the Collection of Modern Religious Art in the Vatican Museums on June 23, 197

/ref> Mario Ferrazza has been responsible for the collection since 1973. On April 23, 1999, Pope John Paul II introduced a new area to the Collection, which continues to expand in space and scope.

Sale of art

In response to demands by activists that the Vatican should sell its artistic artifacts and give them to the poor, Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes asserted that the Church has the duty to conserve the works of art in the name of the Italian state and cannot sell them.

Notes

References

Ralf van Bühren Ralf van Bühren (born 3 February 1962) is a German art historian, architectural historian, church historian, and theologian, who teaches at the Pontifical University of Santa Croce in Rome. His art history lectures are open to students of US un ...

: ''Kunst und Kirche im 20. Jahrhundert. Die Rezeption des Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzils'' (Konziliengeschichte, Reihe B: Untersuchungen). Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh 2008 () * Francesco Buranelli: ''Art and Faith in the Vatican Museums. The artistic Collections of the Popes, spiritual Treasure of Mankind'', in: „Images of Salvation“, Pomezia 2002, pp. 63–71 * Mario Ferrazza (Ed.): ''Collezione d'Arte Religiosa Moderna'', presentation by Francesco Buranelli, Vatican City 2000 {{DEFAULTSORT:Collection Of Modern Religious Art, Vatican Museums Modern Religious Art Modern art museums 1973 establishments in Vatican City Art museums established in 1973

Collection

Sale of art

See also

Notes

References