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Ian McKeever in the studio, Hartgrove, 2025. Photograph Anne Purkiss, courtesy the Artist.

On Sunday, June 21, 2026, the first day of summer, at 11:00 a.m., a special event dedicated to artist Ian McKeever will take place at Studio Tommaseo, Via del Monte 2/1. The artist will present his book Talking Painting: Writings on Art and Artists, 1977–2025, recently published by the Royal Academy of Arts in London, in conjunction with an exhibition of selected drawings created by McKeever during his travels in Greenland.

The Exhibition and Conversation
After presenting his new book at the Royal Academy on Wednesday, June 17, McKeever will arrive in Trieste on Thursday, June 18 to create a special installation of the drawings specifically for the book presentation at Studio Tommaseo, to be held on the morning of the summer solstice. At 11:00 a.m. on Sunday, June 21, Ian McKeever will discuss Talking Painting: Writings on Art and Artists, 1977–2025 with Giuliana Carbi Jesurun and the audience in English.
Following the March event with the curators of the recent Fra Angelico exhibition in Florence, this is the second event in the 2026 Art Encounters program organized by the newly established Franco Jesurun Foundation ETS, in collaboration with Trieste Contemporanea.

The Artist
Ian McKeever is a member of the Royal Academy of Arts in London and began painting in 1969. His early works emerged from a conceptual interest in landscape, painting, and photography, reflecting his travels in Greenland, Papua New Guinea, and Siberia. By the mid-1980s, his work became increasingly abstract, revealing his interest in the nature of light, the human body, and architectural structures.

McKeever and Trieste
This is not the first time McKeever has had a professional relationship with the city. He held a solo exhibition at Galleria Tommaseo in 1977 and, exactly forty years later, mounted another exhibition for Trieste Contemporanea, Letters, 2015–2017. He also participated in Trieste Contemporanea’s international exhibition projects Wavefront (2016, exhibition at Palazzo Costanzi in Trieste) and In Search of Identity in the Age of the Selfie (exhibitions at Studio Tommaseo in Trieste in 2019 and at the Vilnius Academy of Arts in 2021).

Fondazione Franco Jesurun ETS
via del Monte 2/1, 34122 Trieste
codice fiscale 90175070326
info@fondazionejesurun.org
+39 040 639187