One hundred years after her birth, Milan celebrates Rachele Bianchi with a major retrospective that reaffirms her artistic and civic legacy. ” Figura Forma. 100 anni di Rachele Bianchi ” brings together around one hundred works—including sculptures, bas-reliefs, paintings, drawings, and archival materials—to retrace, in the institutional spaces of Palazzo Pirelli, the creative journey of one of the most original and courageous artists of the Italian twentieth century. The exhibition will be open from January 14 to February 6, 2026.
Self-taught, tenacious, and deeply visionary, Rachele Bianchi (1925–2018) developed an unmistakable poetic style centered on the female figure as a universal archetype. With over 1,600 works created over a period of seventy years, she was one of the first female artists to gain public recognition in Milan and Lombardy. Her Personaggio in Via Vittor Pisani—the city’s first public sculpture dedicated to and created by a woman—remains a symbol of emancipation and inclusion to this day. Thirteen other works by her, all dedicated to the female figure, dot the public spaces of the region. In 2019, her name was included among the first hundred women honored at the Famedio in Milan.
THE EXHIBITION
The exhibition recounts the strength and depth of an artist who transcended cultural boundaries and gender prejudices, transforming ‘hard’ materials such as bronze, marble, and ceramics into forms dense with poetry and presence.
The exhibition opens with a room of highlights that brings together four key works, summarizing the complexity of her language. Next, photographs by Daniela Ferrante document Rachele Bianchi’s public imprint in Lombardy: from monumental sculptures to dialogues with museums, squares, and architecture.
An intimate section, constructed with report cards, letters, sketches, and photographs, allows visitors to enter the artist’s private dimension, “leafing through” her life through her personal archive.
From the 1950s onwards, essential drawings emerge, in which the pencil defines the evolution of the post-war female body. Ceramics, on the other hand, mark the transition to three-dimensionality: the gesture that becomes form, the material that becomes narrative.
The heart of the exhibition is the large central hall, dedicated to the most distinctive cycles:
– nativity scenes and motherhood, intimate and collected;
– the cloaked woman, a protective figure born in times of crisis;
– the Characters, from geometric cloaks to increasingly rarefied forms;
– the net, a symbol of openness, dialogue, and inclusion, a recognizable feature of her poetics.
The exhibition concludes with canvases from the 2000s, surprising in their formal freedom and energy, testimony to an artist who never stopped experimenting.
THE RACHELE BIANCHI ARCHIVE 3.0: FOUR NETWORKS FOR AN OPEN VISION
Founded in 2019, the Archive preserves and promotes the artist’s entire body of work, developing a cultural project divided into four “networks” that define its contemporary mission:
- The Work Network – Conservation, study, and promotion of Rachele Bianchi’s legacy through institutional exhibitions and research.
- The Open Network – An annual program that invites young artists to engage in dialogue with her work. Recent projects include Reti 2025 with Isorropia Homegallery, which presents the works of Debora Garritani in relation to those of the artist.
- Women Between the Lines – A series of meetings and presentations dedicated to contemporary female narratives and perspectives.
- The Artists’ Network – A new initiative created for the Centenary, connecting archives, studios, and foundations dedicated to women artists in Lombardy, creating an ecosystem of collaboration and visibility.
The Centenary marks a moment of expansion: a new Scientific Committee, a revamped digital platform, and registration in the Register of Associations of Milan’s Municipality 1, with the aim of broadening the dialogue with the city.
An exhibition that celebrates not only an anniversary, but an absence that continues to speak. Rachele Bianchi’s works remind us that form is memory, that figure is identity, and that every woman who takes up space gives it back to those who will come after her. In this centenary, Milan does not look to the past: it recognizes what still pulsates, what continues to shape our gaze.
SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Rachele Bianchi (1925–2018) was a sculptor and painter who shaped a symbolic universe made up of Characters, female identities, memories, and spirituality. Her “open network” is the sign that best represents her: an emblem of relationship, exchange, and listening. Her Personaggio in Via Vittor Pisani remains a landmark of Milanese public art. Since 2019, the Rachele Bianchi Archive has been preserving and promoting her vision.
