"...So in our time you see individuals who have a serious and normal appearance, repeating like so many monkeys and parrots, the grimaces, the slogans, and the clichés that they hear around them or that they read in books, magazines and newspapers. Contrary to this kind of person, Giorgio Zamberlan looked with his eyes and judged with his brain and rebelled and reacted violently if someone, in good or bad faith, tried to convince him to accept or admit something that he, Giorgio Zamberlan, did not want to accept or admit...." (G. De Chirico, Preface to the autobiography of G. Zamberlan, p.IX)

Who Giorgio De Chirico was is obviously well known and well known, who Giorgio Zamberlan was is less obvious. Indeed, probably obscure to most, even among experts. Yet, without Mr. Zamberlan from Treviso, De Chirico himself would not have been and become the great artist known to all. Because Zamberlan and his family accompanied the great painter in his artistic and professional career, promoting and spreading his work for a long time, with affection, mutual respect and I would say heartfelt friendship. The role of the gallery owner, and Zamberlan has always been one, is delicate, precious and indispensable, especially in a period, pre-internet and pre-social. Zamberlan from his Venetian atelier accompanied De Chirico over the years, followed his artistic growth, his national and international affirmation, and together they conceived projects, such as the Anti-Biennials, of a devastating modernity. Far from simple provocations, but counter-exhibitions organized in every detail, even with the publication of precious and rare flyers full of programmatic texts. There is an autobiography in the form of stories by Giorgio Zamberlan, which is truly exciting and captivating to read (G.Zamberlan, Il mercante in camera , Edizioni My Monkey, 2021). We must look with regret at the men of that generation, who have gone through devastating war events and yet are capable of an absolutely extraordinary desire to live, to smile, to commit themselves in the world and for the world. Zamberlan was a social man, a man of relationships, perhaps not easy in character but of undisputed leadership. He lived surrounded by more or less famous artists and from all of them he drew inspiration to grow, humanly and professionally. He plays football in his Treviso with Arturo Martini, fraternally frequents people like Comisso, De Pisis, Morandi, but then chooses his companions of choice: and Giorgio de Chirico was one of these, perhaps the first. This deep friendship, much more than a professional collaboration, is evidenced by the 24 letters, articles, notes and notes in the lot, sent by the painter to his Venetian friend over a period of almost 25 years.
The correspondence and essays/articles are concentrated in the years of the Anti-Biennale, and take on the value of programmatic, ideological missives, clarifying a thought of rupture evident to all. We begin with the first article, at the opening of the album, with the emblematic title: Io e la Pittura (I and Painting), three dense folders where De Chirico expresses, in those years, his vision of the pictorial world. "I have always considered Painting a very difficult art to conquer, and often a whole life is not enough, even a long one, and completely dedicated to study, work and meditation on the infinite problems that painting creates and has always created as long as there were true artists and true lovers and cultivators of Art among men. All this ended in the second half of the last century, when the decline of painting began with the valorization of French Impressionist painters by Parisian dealers. (...)" Following is a stunning note in red ink, dated Venice 2 September 1971: "Art is the dream that man has when awake and that in the dream of sleep becomes reality". And how can we not mention a funny poem with alternating rhymes entitled The collector's pain, dated Venice 3 September 1975.

In the lot, "service communications" for his trusted gallery owner and friend Zamberlan alternate with interventions of great cultural and ideological depth, a small nucleus of documents that should be studied, valued and contextualized by those who recognize De Chirico as one of the pillars of modern Italian art.