The Museum Foundation Antonio Ligabue was founded in 2014 following the will of the Municipality of Gualtieri, Emilbanca, Credito Coperativo, Landi Renzo Group (through Girefin S.p.a) and Boorea Soc. Coop. In 2015 the Foundation organized a major retrospective exhibition titled Ligabue, Gualtieri. Il ritorno, it happened during the fiftieth anniversary of Antonio Ligabue’s death. The exhibition recorded a record attendance (over 35000 visitators). From 2015 the Foundation, in close partnership with the Municipality of Gualtieri, started a design process for the realization of a permanent museum dedicated to Ligabue. Although the main mission of the Foundation is mainly focused on the valorization and knowledge of Antonio Ligabue’s work, from 2016 the cultural activities deployed and became wider in the awareness that for the valorization of Antonio Ligabue’s work is strategically a wide-ranging cultural activity. Nowadays, therefore, the Foundation’s activity is mainly focused on three side-by-side fronts to the enhancement of Antonio Ligabue’s work:
- The organization of temporary exhibitions that relate to: the work of artists linked to the artistic world of Ligabue; the work of eminent artists of this land; the work of artists that are recognised at national and international level.
- The valorization of the patrimony of the collection of Umberto Tirelli’s works (it’s the result of the donation Tirelli-Trappetti) that is property of the Municipality of Gualtieri the exhibition presents two costumes and fifty-three works of inestimable value (Balthus, Guttuso, Clerici, De Chirico and Manzù’s paintings and graphic works).
- The valorization of the monumental patrimony made up of Palazzo Bentivoglio, in particulat the frescoed rooms of the Salone dei Giganti with the cycles of frescoes from “Gerusalemme Liberata”.
From 2016 to nowadays, a series of exhibitions, aimed at pursuing the lines of programming outlined above, has been organized. In particular it can list: Varlin. Dipingere la vita; Bruno Rovesti. Pittore contadino celebre; L’ossessione dello sguardo. Zavattini incontra Ligabue; L’utopia dello sguardo. La collezione di fotografia europea 2006-2017; Umberto Tirelli. Ritorno a Gualtieri.
Moreover, from 2017, the Foundation started on one hand a stable collaboration with the Municipality of Reggio Emilia and Musei Civici and on the other with the Municipality of Luzzara and Fondazione Un Paese. The collaboration involves good practices of mutual valorisation and promotion.