GIANFRANCO ZAPPETTINI
The Method of Painting
Opening: Thursday, 15 January 2026, 6:30 pm
16 January – 28 March 2026
Venue: Glenda Cinquegrana Art Consulting, via Luigi Settembrini 17, 20124 Milan
Tuesday–Saturday, 3:00–7:00 pm
Curated by Andrea Daffra, Artistic Director of the Fondazione Zappettini, Chiavari
Glenda Cinquegrana Art Consulting is pleased to present the solo exhibition dedicated to the master of Analytical Painting, Gianfranco Zappettini, titled The Method of Painting, curated by Andrea Daffra, Artistic Director of the Fondazione Zappettini in Chiavari. The exhibition, which brings together a significant core of works by Zappettini, aims to highlight the continuity within the painter’s method between his historical research and his most recent production. Structured as an intense dialogue between works from the 1960s and 1970s and several pieces from the last decade, the exhibition seeks to underscore the coherence of a method that spans the artist’s entire trajectory—one based on the construction of the painting as an analytical instrument. In this surface, support, and light represent the essential terms of form. The historical works from the series Strutture, Tavole, Superfici analitiche and Le tele sovrapposte are juxtaposed with recent cycles such as La trama e l’ordito, La Luce Prima and Con-Centro, enabling viewers to observe how the reflection on perception continually redefines itself within Zappettini’s practice over time, while never relinquishing analytical and formal consistency. Conceived not according to a chronological reconstruction but through a comparative criterion, the exhibition path identifies both the constants and the transformations that have occurred within the artist’s language. The exhibition also presents an unpublished photographic nucleus: in Zappettini’s research, photography occupies a position linked to the reflection on perception and on the conditions of image formation; it becomes a fundamental instrument for constructing the analytical path developed in painting. In works such as En plein air, S. Andrea a Rovereto and Sera a S. Pietro di Rovereto, photography—set in direct relation to natural light and visual memory—becomes a tool for verifying the act of seeing. Rather than a mere documentary device, it serves as an operative instrument that, much like the canvas, renders time and space visible, elements that unfold within the analytical works.
