Matteo Olivero Art Gallery

The Hall on the second floor of the Old Town Hall houses the Picture Gallery dedicated to the painter Matteo Olivero (1879-1932).

Born in Acceglio in the upper Maira valley, Matteo Olivero exhibited in Paris, Brussels, and Munich, developing a very personal style within the Italian Divisionism movement through his friendship with Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo and Giovanni Segantini.

After training at the Accademia Albertina in Turin, Olivero moved to Saluzzo in 1905 and set up his studio in Salita al Castello, a few steps from the museum now dedicated to him, until 1930. The collection of works by Matteo Olivero acquired by the Municipality of Saluzzo consists of what was found in his studio at the time of his death (1932), as well as donations and bequests.

It is a collection of over 150 paintings, mostly oils on cardboard or canvas, but also watercolours, plus an equal number of drawings, documents, photographs, and correspondence, conserved in the Historical Archive in Castiglia.

A selection of the most significant works from the entire municipal collection is on display at the Pinacoteca: 67 paintings, 17 drawings and 2 sculptures, chosen by the curator, Prof. Maggio Serra, with the aim of understanding the artist’s working method and the evolution of his style. The itinerary is divided into four exhibition areas on the basis of four themes (the time of social realism, his incursion into divisionism, the 1920s, his working method) to rediscover the human and artistic life of a great artist, popularly known as the “painter of the snows”: his fame is in fact linked to the vast and refined visions of his beloved Cuneo mountains, which celebrate the solemnity of the mountains under the crystalline light of snowy winters.

Among the works on display, attention is drawn to the large Divisionist painting entitled “Morning: Upper Macra Valley”, exhibited in Paris in 1910: the painting is an exploit of bravery by the young Olivero at the height of his adhesion to Italian Divisionism.