11 Oct-8 Jan 201. The Palazzo delle Espozioni presents the most comprehensive exhibition of Socialist Realism ever held outside Russia. The movement, which extolled socialism through realistic visual art, began in the Soviet Union and became a dominant style in other communist countries.

The state-backed movement encouraged traditional artistic methods, and although it drew some inspiration from both classical and contemporary aspects of European art, it swam against the global tide of 20th century modernism.

The exhibition follows its development from the end of the civil war through to the Brezhnev era, ending at the beginning of the 1970s when the movement slowly began to lose steam.