Carla Accardi
and the Italian fashion in the ’50s

Carla Accardi
Integrazione n. 19, 1958
casein on canvas
91,6 x 98,1 cm | 36 x 38 ½ in.

II Premio Pittura Sorelle Fontana. Sedici pittori per sedici vestiti, Atelier Sorelle Fontana in via San Sebastianello, Rome, June 1959. A mannequin shows Integrazione n. 19, the work by Carla Accardi included in the exhibition. (Courtesy Archivio Fondazione Micol Fontana, Rome).

In the same occasion, three mannequins wear clothes with fabrics inspired by the works of three artists. On the left, Integrazione n. 19 by Carla Accardi alongside works by Giorgio Ascani Nuvolo and Salvatore Scarpitta. (Courtesy Archivio Fondazione Micol Fontana, Rome).

The work was part of a selection of paintings on show, in June 1959, in the Atelier Sorelle Fontana in Rome, the temple of high fashion located in via di San Sebastianello, between Piazza di Spagna and Viale della Trinità dei Monti. The exhibition Sedici pittori per sedici vestiti (Sixteen painters for sixteen dresses) brought together works destined to be the source of inspiration for fabrics then used for the fashion creations most appreciated by an exclusive clientele.

Elizaberth Taylor in a photo taken on 9th September 1953 in the Sorelle Fontana atelier in Rome, while she is trying on the cocktail dress created specially for her.

Ava Gardner with Micol Fontana at the premiere di La contessa scalza (The Barefoot Contessa), 1954, movie in which the American actress stars with Humphrey Bogart.

Black and white is a much loved motif by the Fontana sisters. One thinks of the cocktail dress created a few years earlier for Liz Taylor, in double black wool-silk crepe, with black velvet and white silk inserts. In those years, the high fashion atelier founded by Micol Fontana was dressing Hollywood divas, from Grace Kelly to Audrey Hepburn and Ava Gardner, for which splendid stage costumes were created for many films, including La contessa scalza (The Barefoot Contessa), but also princesses, such as Maria Pia di Savoia and Soraya, and first ladies such as Jacqueline Kennedy.

The painting reappeared in public in March 1965 for the Accardi’s solo show at Galerie Stadler in Paris. The exhibition was solicited by Michel Tapié, the French critic who collaborated with the gallery located in rue de Seine in Paris. His collaboration began in 1955 and continued uninterrupted until 1970. The solo show followed another exhibition organized by Tapié, which inaugurated a few days before: Le Baroque Généraliste at the International Center of Aestethic Research in Turin. Accardi was invited to participate with a work realized in 1959. These are just a few examples of the long and continuous collaboration between the artist and the French critic.Michel Tapié appears here in a photo at the Galerie Stadler, Paris, 1967.