Mantua (Mantova in Italian) has earned a place on the contemporary art map with the opening of The Sonnabend Collection Mantova, a new museum of international and Italian art from the second half of the 20th century to the early 2000s. Housed in the renovated 13th-century Palazzo della Ragione, the museum features 94 works on loan from the personal collection of the late Ileana Sonnabend (1914-2007), a Romanian-American art dealer and patron credited with advancing the careers of some of the most influential artists of the 20th century.
Sonnabend and her husband Michael, a Dante scholar, established galleries in 1960s Paris and 1970s New York, and were instrumental in disseminating knowledge of Pop Art in Europe and of Arte Povera in the United States. Seminal figures like Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Claes Oldenburg, Mario Merz, Donald Judd and Sol LeWitt all feature in the collection. Previously, some of the works were on long-term loan to the Donnaregina Contemporary Art Museum in Naples and to Ca’ Pesaro in Venice, but the Mantua museum opening marks the first time the whole collection has been displayed together.
The new museum grew out of a partnership between the Sonnabend Collection Foundation, the city of Mantua and Marsilio Arte, which will manage the space. As reported by The Art Newspaper, it was Mario Codognato — former chief curator of the Donnaregina Contemporary Art Museum and a friend of the Sonnabends’ — who helped bring the collection to Mantua, knowing that the city was interested in turning Palazzo della Ragione into a permanent cultural space, and that the Sonnabends were interested in a worthy home for their collection. Codognato is now director of the new museum.
Mantua has long been associated with medieval and Renaissance art and architecture. But the Sonnabend Collection slots in naturally with the city’s existing treasures. Next door to Palazzo della Ragione is Mantua’s Ducal Palace, the former residence of the Gonzaga family, who were also great patrons of the arts and were court painter Andrea Mantegna’s biggest supporters. The Sonnabends had an Andrew of their own, Andy Warhol, who may be more talked about in Mantua than Mantegna these days — at least during the final weeks of Andy Warhol: 21 Screen Tests (which runs until April 15).
If you go
The Sonnabend Collection Mantova
Piazza Erbe 13, Mantua
Open daily from 10am-6pm, except Tuesdays
Website
