AGI – An exhibition that tells the story of the man, the teacher and the author of one of the most famous books of the 20th century. “Tolkien. Man, professor, author“ is the exhibition now on view at the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art November 16th until February 11th next year. A journey that allows enthusiasts and the general public to understand John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, creator of the famous epic Middle-earth, an exceptional connoisseur of antiquity, fifty years after his death and the first Italian edition ofLo Hobbit‘.
The Roman exhibition, the first exhibition of this scale ever dedicated to the writer in Italy, is conceived and promoted by the Ministry of Culture in collaboration with the University of Oxford, created by Create Organize Realize under the curatorship of Oronzo Cilli and the co-curation and organization by Alessandro Nicosia. Rome will be there first step a path that will continue in other Italian cities in 2024.
Compared to the major exhibitions in Oxford (2018), Paris (2020) and Milwaukee (2022), which highlighted certain aspects of the English writer’s literary works, this one focuses on Tolkien and tells the story of the man who fathered and the boyfriend”; but also the academic, author of studies and publications that are still fundamental to the study of Old and Middle English literature today; and the narrator and sub-creator of the “Middle-earth“. There will also be space for everything he inspired in art, music and the world of comics.
Immersion in the universe he created is achieved through a complex exhibition program that includes autograph manuscripts, letters, memorabilia, photographs and works of art inspired by the literary visions of a unique and versatile author. The Oxford professor is a man of his time, a novelist, linguist and philologist. It is told in its artistic and human complexity. Particular importance is attached to relations with Italy.
“I love Italian and feel quite lost when I don’t have the opportunity to speak it,” says one of his letters, and the review is not lacking in testimonies of the trip to Venice and Assisi in 1955, as well as the many direct and indirect contacts with scientists and intellectuals in our country. There will also be room for film adaptations old and new, from Ralph Bakshi’s animated film to director Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, which can bring to the big screen one of the most ambitious and popular sagas in world literature and won 17 Oscars -Prices.
Many international institutions were involved in compiling the documentation: the Vatican Apostolic Archives, the Bibliothe’que Alpha of the University of Liège, the University of Reading, the Oratory of San Filippo Neri in Birmingham, the Venerable English College of Rome, the Tolkien Society , the Arnoldo and Alberto Mondadori Foundation, the Benedetto Croce Library Foundation, the Biella Civic Library, the publishers Astrolabio-Ubaldini and Bompiani, the Greisinger Museum of Jenins and Warner Bros Discovery.
The exhibition catalog uses the contributions of Adriano Monti Buzzetti Colella, Giuseppe Pezzini, Emma Giammattei, Francesco Nepitello, Chiara Bertoglio, Gianluca Comastri, Father Guglielmo Spirito, Fabio Celoni, Davide Martini, Roberta Tosi, Salvatore Santangelo, Stefano Giuliano, Claudio Mattia Serafin , Gianfranco de Turris, Paolo Paron and Domenico Dimichino.
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