Giuliano Togni: Retrospective at the Casa Pagani Museum

Description

Sixty years of painting between Valsolda, Lugano, and Europe: the Casa Pagani Museum celebrates one of the most recognizable figures of the cross-border art scene.

From the May 9 to June 28, 2026, The Pagani House Museum Castello Valsolda hosts the great retrospective dedicated to Julian Togni, a Valsolda painter of national and international renown. The exhibition spans nearly sixty years of his career, from the sprayed acrylics of his early work to the celebrated extroverted canvases of his later decades, and is the result of a collaboration between the Casa Pagani Museum, the Friends of the Museum Association, the Compagnia del Castello, and the Municipality of Valsolda.

The inauguration on May 9th

The opening day opens Saturday, May 9th at 5:00 PM in the Church of San Martino di Castello — the small “Sistine Chapel” of Lombardy, frescoed by Paolo Pagani in 1697 — with greetings from the authorities and speeches from the mayor Laura Romanò, of the president of the Friends of the Museum Association Roger Pianezzi and the director Giorgio Mollisi, art historian. The artist himself will speak, while his daughter Gloria Togni The ceremony will be accompanied by flute interludes. This will be followed by the presentation of an opera and a slide show dedicated to Bellotti of San Mamete, a dynasty of painters and sculptors from Valsoldi who were active in Europe between the 16th and 18th centuries. 18:00 we move to the Pagani House Museum for the ribbon cutting and refreshments in the oratory.

A route between Valsolda and Canton Ticino

Born in Milan in 1942 and raised in Valsolda, Togni trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Paris (1963-65) and of Rome (1966). He taught for years at CSIA of Lugano and for a decade he presided over the Ticino section of the Society of Swiss Painters and Architects (today Visarte), organizing about fifty exhibitions. Today he lives and works in Origlio, on the other bank of Lake Ceresio: a biographical trajectory that effectively makes him a pivotal figure between the two shores of the lake.

Research: painting that emerges from the frame

Togni's most recognizable feature is the everted canvas set on a lacquered wooden panel — the shaped canvas, a lexicon that dialogues with Burri, Geiger, Stella, Kelly, Tuttle. But in his work the projection is never a pure geometric shape: it is dense fragment of memory, where classicism is not a citation but a founding law. Togni donated to the Casa Pagani Museum Temperance (the painter's hourglass), 80×80 cm extruded canvas on lacquered panel, which becomes a permanent part of the collection of Valsolda artists on the third floor.

Download the poster

📄 Download the exhibition poster (PDF)