Le signorine

Published on the occasion of the exhibition Margherita Manzelli. Le Signorine, this catalogue retraces more than thirty years of the artist’s poetic and painterly practice. Featuring a selection of paintings from the 1990s to the present, alongside previously unseen drawings and works conceived specifically for the show—including a piece inspired by Prato’s Cathedral of Santo Stefano—the volume highlights the dialogue between Manzelli’s vision and the context that hosts it.

The title evokes the distinctive female figures that inhabit Manzelli’s universe: independent, untimely presences whose ambiguous yet forceful stance resists conventional roles. Her paintings reveal women who are at once fragile and defiant, often portrayed nude or semi-nude, suspended within abstract spaces rhythmically punctuated by geometric or ornamental patterns. Recurring motifs, such as the meticulously rendered heads, act as narrative devices and emotional condensations, holding together intensity, contradiction, and inner vision. Through critical essays, visual documentation, and archival materials, the catalogue offers insights into the interplay of figure and ground, visibility and withdrawal, that animates Manzelli’s work.

With scholarly contributions and rich visual content, Le Signorine stands as both a record of the exhibition and an essential resource on one of the most consistent and singular voices in contemporary Italian art.