Rome’s Casa Balla to be a permanent museum.
The Italian state has purchased the former Rome residence of the important Futurist painter Giacomo Balla, Italy’s culture ministry announced on Wednesday.
Known as Casa Balla, the colourful property – which has been accessible on a limited basis since 2021 – will now open to the public on a permanent basis as a state-run house-museum.
The total value of the acquisition, which also includes copyright, is €6.9 million: €6 million for the artworks and furnishings and €900,000 for the property, the culture ministry said in a statement.
Balla, a leading exponent of Italy’s Futurism movement in the early 20th century, lived and worked in the house on Via Oslavia in the capital’s Prati district from 1929 until his death in 1958.
Born in Turin in 1871, Balla shared the building with his wife Elisa and their daughters Luce and Elica.
His two daughters, also painters, stayed living in the house until the 1990s, after which it was closed up for 30 years.
The public got a first glimpse of Balla’s kaleidoscopic vision of art and colour for the first time in 2021 to mark the 150th anniversary of the painter’s birth.
Photos M3Studio Courtesy Fondazione MAXXI © GIACOMO BALLA, by SIAE 2021.
