Robert Mapplethorpe exhibited at the Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, NH, USA The exhibition reveals the intimate connections between Robert Mapplethorpe’s photography and the work of 20th-century Italian painter Filippo de Pisis

Filippo de Pisis and Robert Mapplethorpe: A Distant Conversation is a new exhibition that pairs the work of painter Filippo de Pisis (Italian, 1896–1956) and photographer Robert Mapplethorpe (American, 1946–1989) as part of Distant Conversations, a series that features artists engaging in intergenerational dialogues across barriers of time and space.

The two artists never met in real life, and yet their work reveals astonishing similarities. 'I was working separately on de Pisis and Mapplethorpe when I realized that there were many connections between the two,' explains Lorenzo Fusi, the exhibition’s curator. 'I believe that these similarities are rooted in the commonality of their art-historical references and lived experience of the world.'

In unveiling these pairings for the first time, American audiences have an opportunity to discover the work of one of the most prolific Italian artists of the 20th century, and to consider lesser-known photographs by Mapplethorpe and revisit his oeuvre from a new perspective.

The Currier brings together 42 artworks by de Pisis, between paintings and works on paper, in what is effectively the largest exhibition of his work ever staged on US soil. His artworks will be displayed in tandem with 38 photographs by Mapplethorpe.