The reputation of Futurist artist Mario Sironi, reviled in the post-war period for his links to Fascism, is set to receive a further boost from a new show devoted to his little-known metaphysical work.
Sironi's art has enjoyed a major revival in recent years, fetching record prices at auctions and drawing massive crowds to exhibitions.
But this new exhibit in Parma is expected to set the seal on Sironi's reputation, confirming the versatility of his talent, which extended far beyond the Futurist works that he is famous for.
It offers the first ever serious consideration of Sironi's forays into metaphysical art, including a number of pieces that will be displayed in public for the first time.
Art historians tend to date the start of Sironi's Metaphysical period to 1919, which was also a time when he produced a number of his most important works.
It was during this period that he returned repeatedly to manikin figures, in paintings such as La Lampada (The Lamp) and a variety of drawings.
But unlike the timeless figures favoured by Metaphysical master Giorgio De Chirico, Sironi's dummies have a strong, almost real sense of the human about them.
The exhibit, curated by the artist's grandson, Andrea Sironi, also draws out the Metaphysical elements that appeared in many of his later works, particularly his sweeping paintings and murals of the 1920s and 1930s.
L'Atelier delle Meraviglie (The Atelier of Wonders) was one such work, inserting a series of mechanical and modern elements into the motionless, suspended backdrop of a quiet room, rather than the industrial cityscape beloved of futurists.
The exhibit wraps up with a look at Sironi's brief return to Metaphysics during World War II, when he completed a number of paintings and drawings paying homage to the movement's concepts.
For decades, the reputation of Mario Sironi was weighed down by the part he played as a propagandist of the Fascist state and its values.
Arguably the most renowned artist of that period, Sironi and other party line-toeing artists found their work was largely ignored with the fall of Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.
He received some 30 major commissions at the height of his fame during the Fascist ear.
Those created for temporary purposes - the Fiat pavilion for a World Fair for example - no longer exist while others were destroyed.
Some, however, like frescoes in the Casa Madre dei Mutilati in Rome, managed to resist revisionist temptations and are still popular today.
After the war, Sironi's comet crashed and he lost all public commissions. He turned to small-scale pieces, but never reneged on his belief in the social function of art.
Sironi's work has enjoyed an unexpected surge in popularity over recent years.
A 2003 retrospective of his work in Rome was such a hit that the exhibition was extended for two months and prices fetched by his work are soaring.
In 2001 his painting The Poor Fisherman was sold for a record 549,889 euros at auction in Zurich.
The exhibition runs in Parma's Magnani Rocca Foundation from April 1 until July 15.
