Atzara, MAMA - Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art “Antonio Ortiz Echague”

The Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Atzara, in the province of Nuoro, is dedicated to Antonio Ortiz Echagüe, a Spanish painter belonging to the costume movement who stayed in Atzara from 1906 to 1909.
The collection of the Antonio Ortiz Echagüe Municipal Art Gallery is made up of works that go from the last decade of the 19th century to today. Its birth is ideally connected to important events of the early 1900s when Spanish costume painters arrived in Atzara, fascinated by aspects of traditional local culture.
Atzara, lively and cultured, thus became the center for the elaboration of an indigenous pictorial language inspired by Iberian inspiration and the necessary crossroads for the training of important artists who stayed there more or less long: Antonio Ballero, Giuseppe Biasi, Filippo Figari, Mario Delitala, Carmelo Floris, Stanis Dessy, to name a few artists, whose works are part of the rich exhibition. There are also works by Antonio Ortiz Echagüe, Antonio Corriga, Vittorio Tolu, Bernardino Palazzi, Pietro Antonio Manca, Mauro Manca, Gino Frogheri, Antonio Atza, Liliana Cano and others.
Both stylistically and thematically, the collection offers a comprehensive overview of the artistic trends of the 20th century.
In the room on the ground floor, the works of Spanish and island artists who stayed for short periods in the town of Atzara in the early twentieth century were placed.
Room II contains a series of works classified according to a temporal criterion, given the heterogeneity of the collection composed of numerous artists different in style, formation and period of production.
The visitor is offered a journey that begins with some works from the first half of the twentieth century and continues on an excursus of time in which the names of the great protagonists of the last century follow one another.
The themes covered in the works in the collection are different, in fact, we find traditional figurative themes, late impressionist landscapes and portraits treated according to expressionistic trends. A variety of styles, therefore, of historical periods, but always great artistic personalities who have marked the history of the island's art. Since August 2009, following important work to remove architectural barriers, access to the Museum has also been facilitated for people with disabilities.
(updated descriptive text by the MAMA Museum)

Why it is important to visit it
The museum deserves the attention of visitors, not only for the important exhibition of works from the twentieth century, but also for the validity of the contemporary pictorial production that comes from spontaneous donations from collectors, artists and various entities. The most famous and well-known piece is undoubtedly the painting by Antonio Ortiz Echagüe “Women of Sardinia”, granted to the museum, on loan, by the Higher Regional Ethnographic Institute.
The MAMA Museum is suitable for everyone, and offers the entire public the opportunity to access the exhibition rooms without architectural barriers with sensory experiences and good practices aimed at inclusion.