In October 1925, according to a contemporary report in the Brighton Gazette, Henry D Roberts MBE, the director of Brighton Library and Municipal Art Gallery, enjoyed a private meeting with Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, at Mussolini’s HQ at Palazzo Chigi. How on earth, you could be forgiven for asking, did such an extraordinary event come about?
Roberts was a highly energetic and gifted administrator, and Brighton was lucky to be able to count on his services from 1906 until his retirement in 1935. From 1910 he organised a series of exhibitions featuring contemporary art from different countries. The initial show, Exhibition of Modern French Art, was the very first display of the French post-impressionists in Britain, including Bonnard, Cézanne, Gauguin and Matisse, predating Roger Fry’s more famous Post-Impressionist Exhibition at the Grafton Gallery in London by some months.
This exhibition proved to be a popular success, though critics scoffed at much of the more avant-garde work. London’s Illustrated Daily News critic said of one piece: ‘Colourlessness and its attendant evils are amply expressed in another sort of painting, Mr Felix M Vallotton’s study of a woman at her bath – her tin bath. Brighton must have seemed ugly before one encountered this picture; after the encounter one blesses the beauty of the normal street and sky and week-end crowd.’ The French show was followed by exhibitions of the work of contemporary artists from Sweden (1911), Norway (1913), Spain (1914), Belgium (1915), Russia (1917), Japan (1918), Holland (1920)… and Italy (1926).
Roberts made visits to the countries in question, spending up to a week in the capital and, where possible, meeting with heads of state to garner financial and logistical support for the exhibitions. He arranged the meeting with Mussolini through the Italian ambassador to Great Britain, the Marchese della Torretta, a frequent visitor to Brighton. The interview with Mussolini was conducted in French, which both men spoke fluently. When asked if he would fund the enterprise, according to the Brighton Gazette report, Mussolini said ‘I shall be very pleased to do so.’ The reporter added: ‘The Dictator told Mr Roberts that he had never been to Brighton, but knew of its fame as a seaside resort. On Mr Roberts showing him a photograph of the Brighton Galleries, Signor Mussolini remarked: “I am very glad to have this. I will see it is put into all the Italian newspapers.”’
Once again, most critics were underwhelmed by the work on show, when it was opened to the public in April 1926. Praise was forthcoming, however, for the show of plaques, medallions and medals by Aurelio Mistruzzi. The museum purchased four works, including two landscapes by Giovanni Lomi.
The meeting between Roberts and Mussolini took place shortly after Mussolini announced himself ‘Il Duce’, dictator of the country. Contemporary commentators would no doubt accuse Roberts of enabling Mussolini to use the show to ‘artwash’ his nascent Fascist regime.