Patrizio di Massimo, Between Us

Last Updated on February 27, 2026

New Work by the London-based Italian Artist

3.0 out of 5.0 stars

The history of art is the history of a continuum regularly shattered by revolutionary innovation, which in turn soon becomes absorbed into the continuum, and so it goes throughout the centuries.  This process is evident in the new exhibition of works by the London-based Italian painter Patrizio di Massimo, all created between 2021 and 2026.  Entitled Between Us, it’s on show at the Estorick Collection in North London, described as “an intervention”.   Works by di Massimo are interspersed with works from the permanent collection, but the intention is not to provide a lesson in art history – rather to challenge the viewer to notice points of contact or contrast between images separated by a tumultuous century, thereby engaging with the dialogue between the works themselves.

The Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, to give it its full title, is renowned for its core of works representing early 20th century artistic production, most prominently Futurism, the movement which erupted in Italy, determined to bring about a radical rupture with the academic past, instead celebrating technology, violence and industrial city life.  Its key figures are all represented in the Estorick Collection, including Marco Sironi, Luigi Russolo, and Carlo Carrà. 

Patrizio di Massimo (b 1983) would be best described as a portraitist; so, at first sight, his neat, detailed images of carefully posed real people appear in glaring contrast to the uneasy images from the permanent collection which surround them (and indeed to more rebellious contemporary art production).  And yet, the more you allow yourself to be dragged into their parallel worlds, the more you find points of contact.  Take di Massimo’s  Tears (Gaia).

A portrait of fellow artist Gaia Fugazza, painted at a clearly traumatic time of her life, it is displayed between works by Massimo Campigli, whose early affiliation with  Futurism soon evolved into a search for more traditional artistic values.  On one side, there’s Campigli’s oil, The Belvedere, depicting a ramshackle multi-storey building with multiple windows, each framing the bust of an unsmiling woman looking out.   On the other side, there sits the lithograph Weeping is Not Allowed (1944), showing a group of five women that appear to be supporting each other in an arrangement reminiscent of an ancient frieze.   The three works draw the viewer into their uneasy dialogue.

Patrizio de Massimo’s surfaces appear calm, in certain sequences sharing the serenity of the works around them.   

The Orange Curtain (Gray and Asa)  depicts artist Gray Wielebinski and his husband, writer and researcher Asa Seresin.  It’s an intimate portrait of a loving partnership, placed between very simple pencil drawings (more like studies, really) of still lifes by Giorgio Morandi.  The apparent harmony between these works – contemporary and modern – is disturbed only by the quizzical look in the taller figure of di Massimo’s painting.

Diagonally across the room from a small di Massimo canvas depicting a ballerina’s feet on pointe next to a ladybird – Insteps and Ladybird – we find Futurist Gino Severini’s 1913 Dancer (Ballerina and Sea).  Severini’s work is abstract, a composition of tightly packed, geometric swirls that create, on the lower right-hand corner, a shape exactly mirroring di Massimo’s foot on pointe amid the waves.

Apparent serenity prevails, but doesn’t entirely dominate di Massimo’s work.  Take Still Life With Guitar and Mask (Michele and Monia).

It’s as if the very famous Hockney work, Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy, had suddenly gone quite crazy, its careful composition of domestic harmony degenerating into a violent confrontation, though it’s deliberately unclear whether the couple are really fighting or simply engaging in boisterous play.   Just like the white cat in Hockney’s work, the dog in Still Life seems quite unconcerned with what’s going on around him.

Still Life is a rare example of boisterous movement in di Massimo’s work, though. Domestic harmony is very much in evidence in the painting that gives the title to the exhibition: Between Us.

It depicts the artist and his partner in an embrace set against the backdrop of Windsor Castle.  The accompanying note states that it can be seen as denoting displacement, isolation and a longing for home.  But like all the other dozen or so di Massimo works on show, it’s open to the viewer’s own interpretation, and that is certainly not what the painting brought to my mind.  

This is an exhibition that seeks to engage the viewer in a quest.  The more you allow your imagination to roam, the more you bring past experience in, and the more these works will speak to you, and through you to each other.

Patrizio di Massimo. Between Us is at the Estorick Collection of Modern Art until 12 April

Estorick Collection of Modern Art
39a Canonbury Square
London N1 2AN

For more art, check our review of The Hayward Gallery’s latest show.