Between 1955 and 1968, Venice hosted the Contemporary Italian Print-making Biennials, curated by Giorgio Trentin. The wide-ranging cultural initiative sought to promote prints to a higher level of art, rejecting the exclusively “reproductive” function to which the medium had for too long been consigned. In its seven editions, more than 150 artists were invited and documented, including some of the most important masters of 20th-century Italian art.

The exhibition is divided into two separate appointments dedicated respectively to the editions from 1955 to 1961 and from 1963 to 1968, retracing the ground explored in a cultural adventure that saw Venice as the centre for the latest work in prints, and laying the basis for an important international showcase.