Robert Mapplethorpe and Filippo de Pisis: A Distant Conversation At the Currier Museum of Art

At the Currier Museum of Art, 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 'I believe that these similarities are rooted in the commonality of their art-historical references and lived experience of the world.'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 revisit Mapplethorpe's oeuvre from a new perspective by considering his lesser-known photographs and to discover the work of one of the most prolific Italian artists of the 20th century.

The Currier brings together 38 works by Mapplethrope with 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.