Umbra Vitae, 2024 – 2025 Courtesy the Artist
The Muse in the Woods by Beatrice Brandini
The Museo Novecento has dedicates all its ground-floor galleries to Victor Man with an eponymous exhibition curated by Sergio Risaliti, running until March 7, 2027.
Twenty-five works are on display, featuring subjects ranging from motherhood, portraiture, and self-portraiture to still life and the female figure. Born in 1974 and based in Europe, Victor Man is already considered a major figure in contemporary painting.
Maternity with legend, 2024. Private collection
Maternity (Curve Delle Anime), 2025. Courtesy the Artist
The works of this intriguing artist delve deep into the human soul, where—alongside beauty and innocence—every being harbors shadowy recesses and a profound melancholy.
Noapte Transfigurata, 2020 -2025. Private collection.
Red and Dark Haired Sister, 2017. Private collection
The exhibition brings together 25 paintings created between 2008 and 2026; they simultaneously celebrate life and underscore the inevitability of death. Indeed, the central theme of the first room is procreation, a motif recurring in works such as *Maternity (Curve Delle Anime)*, *Maternity with Legend*, and others. The final room features paintings dedicated to female figures.
Sergio Risaliti, exhibition curator and Director of the Museo Novecento
Reclining Maiden (Prelude of Equinox), 2025 – 2026. Private collection
Victor Man’s painting is contemporary, intimate, and suspended in time. The dialogue between life and death feels entirely natural; it neither frightens nor intimidates us, for it is not an end, but rather memory and storytelling.
Untitled 2013 Courtesy the Artist
A view of the Victor Man exhibition
Sergio Risaliti recounts that it was Enzo Cucchi who first spoke to him about Victor Man. He subsequently saw Man’s works on several occasions, eventually wishing to dedicate an entire exhibition to him. He describes being mesmerized—while viewing the works at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin—by the depth, mystery, light, and originality of the creations.
A lelkek temetöje, der Friedhof der Seelen, 2019. Private collection
Another view of the Victor Man exhibition
Victor Man is a brilliant artist; his works invite us to observe them calmly, to pause for a moment in order to understand them. In a world that moves so fast—where relationships have become difficult—Victor’s paintings tell a different story. They speak of life in its extraordinary facets, where passion, love, existence, and death coexist. And Victor Man whispers in our ear not to be afraid.
Painting must silence the gaze. Victor Man.
Wishing you all the best!
Beatrice