Casa Barabino

Angelo Barabino, the painter from Tortona, had a strong connection with the territory in which his art developed. The relationship based on friendship and esteem with Paolo Barabino, Angelo’s nephew, encouraged the Foundation to ask for the availability, through a multi-year gratuitous loan for use, of the house with the annexed studio, which the painter resided in from 1915 until a few weeks before his death, in Milan in November 1950. The intent of the Foundation has been to repropose the original living spaces of the painter and his family, exactly as the Barabino family has shaped them over time and which, as a sign of great cooperation, has now decided to grant for public use. The “Casa Barabino” project “highlights the commitment of the Foundation in shedding new light on an everyday living environment through an attentive recovery and reorder of the spaces and of the care of materials and of the works present in the home. These activities have led to significant results, even if they cannot be attributed to a rigorous historical reconstruction of the studio. The purpose is to transmit the same feeling of marvel to the visitor, the same which some of us felt in opening the blinds of the large window of the studio together with Paolo Barabino and breathing in the almost physical presence of a humble and sincere artist, but also of a man profoundly affected by the horrors of two military conflicts and of the struggle of living a life consecrated to art, at such a difficult time. The opening of “Casa Barabino” to the public is also the opportunity to remember Angelo Barabino as one of the fifty-one founders of the Cassa di Risparmio di Tortona, joined in 1911 by the sharing of the framework foundations of the “Plebiscite Concordia” and by the shared commitment to the “moral and civil elevation of all citizens”. A civil commitment, which was certainly written into the genetic code of Angelo Barabino. In 1907, he was elected municipal councillor, in 1909 appointed Councillor for Fine Arts of the Municipality of Tortona and President of the Executive Committee of the Civic Theatre, President of the Municipal School of Music for String instruments in 1910 and again in 1919 year in which he was expelled from the Tortona section of the Socialist Party with the accusation of “interventionism” for having set up a committee to provide welfare services for the poor families of those recalled for duty.