Rita Longa’s Gray Bird, Florence’s Twentieth-century Museum, restored 2016
Rita Longa’s Gray Bird
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An abstract Cuban gift. As Jane Fortune writes in her article ‘Ladies from afar, for Florence’ (The Florentine, 2016), “Longa’s (1912–2000) small wooden sculpture, Gray Bird, is a unique abstract departure from her usual iconic large-scale sculptures, epitomized by her famed Ballerina, which, in Havana, is nearly as famous as the mambo-haven it represents: Club Tropicana”. Gray Bird was gifted to Florence after Palazzo Vecchio’s 1967 show, following the 1966 flood that ravaged Florence. City administrators intended to sell the artwork from ‘The Cubans’ exhibition, but the intention never reached fulfilment. The work in storage was restored in 2016, in time to commemorate the flood’s 50th anniversary. It is now part of Florence’s Twentieth-century Museum collection.