Pro Civitate Christiana Contemporary Art Gallery

The Contemporary Art Gallery is part of the activities sponsored by Pro Civitate Cristiana, an association of laymen, known as Volunteers, founded in Assisi in 1939 by Father Giovanni Rossi to help people to understand Christ and his message for the people of our time. In addition to the direct announcement of the Gospel in the various towns in ItaLy, the association began a Course of Christian Studies in Assisi, a publisher’s and a magazine Rocca, conferences, and the Observatory as a documentation centre, a tiny church, an auditorium and a study on the presence of Christ in history, art, and literature.

Thanks to private patronage, from 1951 onwards it has been possible to construct the Christian Citadel as a workshop for these activities , especially as a place to stay and meet people with a hospitality sector, a tiny church, an auditorium, a library, the Art Gallery and lastly terraces and gardens.

Exhibitions, commissions, competitions, conferences, awards in the major national art festivals were a means to return the focus of the artists, whether believers or non-believers, back to the figure of Christ. The major, Italian, postwar painters and sculptors included Bodini, Carena, Carpi, Carrà, De Chirico, Gentilini, Greco, Pirandello, Rosai, Sassu, as well as masters of the abstract, such as the American, William Congdon, who took part in this extraordinary experience of Christian life.

The current collection today numbers about 2,500 works of painting, sculpture and contemporary graphics by about 700 artists. One subject in particular was proposed to the artists: Jesus the Divine Labourer, to bring to light a long, unknown period, even in art, of the life of Jesus and to reflect on the meaning of his sharing the everyday life of every man.