Description

In 2011 the Italian State Mint and Polygraphic Institute began a coin series entitled Flora and Fauna in Art Masterpieces. A Dual program with a €20 gold coin dedicated to flora or botanical themes, and a €50 gold coin inspired by fauna or zoological themes. The coins would illustrate and celebrate plant and animal life as portrayed in classical art through the ages.

2016 marks the last coin in the 20-euro gold series Flora in Art or Flora Nell Arte. The 2016 Flora in Art coin pays homage to contemporary art and features artistic female figurines adorned with floral decorative pieces. The figures are inspired by frescoes created by Ettore de Maria Bergler, a painter born in Naples, Italy, in 1850. He died in Palermo, Italy, in 1938.

Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic combination of materials, methods, concepts, and subjects that continue the challenging of boundaries that was already well underway in the 20th century. Diverse and eclectic, contemporary art as a whole is distinguished by the very lack of a uniform, organising principle, ideology, or "-ism". Contemporary art is part of a cultural dialogue that concerns larger contextual frameworks such as personal and cultural identity, family, community, and nationality.

Artist: Annalisa Masini