Levi Art Gallery
22 paintings and a precious manuscript

“The sky is blue again and I can start painting”

A material, wavy, enveloping brushstroke: this is the pictorial language of Carlo Levi, whose works are displayed in the seventeenth-century Palazzo Morteo, located amidst the lights of the shops in the Budello of Alassio. The small and precious art gallery houses twenty-two paintings, along with showcases containing letters, notes, and personal memories of the Turin artist, who chose Alassio as his summer residence from 1929 to 1975. Here he drew inspiration to paint landscapes, carobs (trees very dear to him), and a famous portrait of Italo Calvino, a frequent visitor to his hillside villa.

Probably the fame of Carlo Levi as a writer and Senator of the Republic overshadows what was one of his greatest passions: painting. In the open air or in the panoramic studio, the artist-writer loved to depict the lush nature of the park at his hillside villa in Alassio. In the early 1930s, Levi's pictorial language solidifies his characteristic “restless” style: a seemingly motionless landscape, a sort of earthly paradise, “youthful jungle, full of insects, animals, children, leaves, branches, crickets, sand” (as he describes it in 1950), in which the events of history, including wars and persecutions, personal matters, loves, and solitude, are present but purified of their contingent aspects. Over two thousand paintings over the span of half a century portray the Alassian universe with its olive trees, carobs, and rocks.

From the mid-1960s until the last summer in 1974, Carlo Levi painted the carobs of Alassio often using two to four overlapping canvases, so as to create life-sized representations one could walk through. He named these works often evoking characters from mythology or literature or simply animals.

The paintings exhibited in the gallery

The twenty-two paintings displayed in the Palazzo Morteo art gallery, lent by the Carlo Levi Foundation, were all painted in Alassio except for the Self-Portrait with Pipe: one on the Méditerranèe promenade, the others in the hills, including a famous portrait of Italo Calvino, the Sanremo writer who visited his Turin friend every year at Villa Levi. In dedicated showcases, a part of the historical archive of Carlo Levi is displayed, donated to the city of Alassio by Antonio and Silvia Ricci, including agendas, letters, notes, sketches, and the famous manuscript of Quaderno a cancelli.

Palazzo Morteo, an example of Baroque Ligurian architecture

Palazzo Morteo, home to the Carlo Levi Art Gallery, dates back to the 1600s. The marble portal and the grand staircase that provide access to the exhibition are a fine example of Baroque Ligurian architecture. The building was inherited in 1887 by the Mutual Aid Agricultural Society of Sola at the testamentary behest of Count Luigi Morteo, who bound the inheritance exclusively for cultural activities.

Biography of Carlo Levi

• 1902 Carlo Levi is born into a wealthy Jewish family of the Turin bourgeoisie on November 29, 1902. From a young age, he dedicates much time to painting, an art he will passionately cultivate throughout his life achieving significant successes.
• 1917 He enrolls in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Turin and in the 1920s collaborates with the magazine La Rivoluzione liberale. He is introduced to the school of Felice Casorati, around which the Turin pictorial avant-garde revolves.
• 1923 He graduates in Medicine and will remain at the Medical Clinic of the University of Turin as an assistant until 1928, but he will not practice medicine, preferring painting and journalism.
• 1931 He joins the anti-fascist movement “Justice and Liberty”.
• 1935 Levi is first arrested and the following year, after a second arrest, is sentenced to internal exile in the Lucanian town of Grassano and later in the small town of Aliano. This experience will inspire his most famous novel, “Christ Stopped at Eboli”.
• 1936 The fascist regime, riding the wave of collective enthusiasm for the Ethiopian conquest, grants him a pardon, and the writer moves for several years to France where he continues his political activity.
• 1945 Levi publishes his denunciation novel “Christ Stopped at Eboli,” the echo of which will overshadow his activity as a painter.
• 1954 He joins the neorealist group and participates in the Venice Biennale.
• 1963 He begins to engage in active politics. A candidate for a senate seat, he is elected Senator of the Republic for two legislatures.
• 1975 He dies in Rome on January 4, 1975. His body rests in the cemetery of Aliano, where he wished to be buried to keep the promise he made to the inhabitants when he left the town.