The retrospective Alberto Burri: the Trauma of Painting (until 6 January) at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York reveals the Italian artist as a man of many talents—including, it turns out, giving wonderful Christmas presents. The show brings together 16 miniatures that Burri sent to James Johnson Sweeney, the Guggenheim’s second director, as gifts over three decades from 1953. Each work, no larger than a postcard, represents a series by the artist and is painstakingly crafted, down to its tiny wooden frame. Sweeney—one of Burri’s staunchest supporters—affectionately referred to the collection as “our ‘little Burri’ gallery”.