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| Galleria del Cavallino | |
|---|---|
| Name | Galleria del Cavallino |
| Established | 1948 |
| Location | Venice, Italy |
| Type | Contemporary art gallery |
| Founder | Carlo Cardazzo |
| Director | Giorgio Mazzoleni (historical) |
| Website | (defunct) |
Galleria del Cavallino Galleria del Cavallino was a seminal postwar art gallery in Venice that played a pivotal role in promoting Italian art and international modernism during the mid‑20th century. Located in the Venice context of the Biennale di Venezia, the gallery became a nexus for painters, sculptors, critics, curators, collectors, and institutions such as the Peggy Guggenheim Collection and the Museum of Modern Art. Its exhibitions intersected with movements represented by figures linked to the Venice Biennale, the Documenta series, and major museums including the Tate Modern and the Centre Pompidou.
The gallery’s trajectory is intertwined with post‑World War II cultural reconstruction, engaging personalities like Carlo Cardazzo, Peggy Guggenheim, Lucio Fontana, Giorgio de Chirico, Enrico Crispolti and institutions such as the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia and the Provincia di Venezia. Early collaborations involved critics from the pages of Il Gazzettino and curators associated with the Biennale College and the International Council of Museums (ICOM). Its programming responded to debates around Arte Povera, Spatialism, Informalismo, Abstract Expressionism, and exchanges with galleries like Galleria Borghese, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, Schirmer/Mosel, and dealers active in New York City, Paris, and London.
Founded by dealer Carlo Cardazzo amid the cultural milieu of late 1940s Venice, the gallery quickly linked with patrons such as the Fondazione Querini Stampalia, the Società Veneziana di Storia Patria, and collectors aligned with museums like the Uffizi Gallery and the Galleria degli Uffizi. The early program featured artists whose careers intersected with events like the Venice Biennale 1948, the Quadriennale di Roma, and exhibitions at the Palazzo Grassi and the Ca' Pesaro. Critics including Lionello Venturi, Roberto Longhi, Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti, Giulio Carlo Argan, and Flavio Caroli wrote about the shows, linking the gallery to journals such as Domus, Origini, Arte Italiana, and La Voce Repubblicana.
The gallery curated solo and group exhibitions that presented artists connected to Spatialism and Arte Informale alongside international figures from Abstract Expressionism and European Informal Art. Shows featured artists whose practices intersected with institutions like Castello di Rivoli, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Kunsthalle Basel, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and the National Gallery of Art. Exhibition catalogs and events involved curators from Fondazione Prada, MAXXI, Sotheby's, and auction houses such as Christie's and Bonhams. Collaboration networks extended to critics and curators from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian Institution, the Reina Sofía Museum, and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía.
The roster included major practitioners and emerging artists whose works later entered collections at the Museum of Modern Art, the Tate Gallery, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, and the Guggenheim Museum. Names associated with the gallery overlap with those in exhibitions at the Venice Biennale, the Documenta exhibitions, and the Whitney Biennial: Lucio Fontana, Giorgio Morandi, Carlo Carrà, Giorgio de Chirico, Alberto Burri, Emilio Vedova, Ennio Morlotti, Giorgio Morandi, Pino Pascali, Fausto Melotti, Giorgio Griffa, Marisa Merz, Alighiero Boetti, Luciano Fabro, Giuseppe Penone, Mimmo Rotella, Mario Schifano, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Jannis Kounellis, Antoni Tàpies, Hans Hartung, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Helen Frankenthaler, Franz Kline, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, Enrico Baj, Giorgio Bassani, Giuseppe Santomaso, Renato Guttuso, Carla Accardi, Giorgio Morandi (note: repeated artist appears in diverse cataloguing), Paolozzi, Eduardo Chillida, Jean Arp, Alexander Calder, Alberto Giacometti, Piet Mondrian, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Amedeo Modigliani, Umberto Boccioni, Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Marcel Duchamp.
Galleria del Cavallino influenced curatorial practice across Italy, France, Germany, United Kingdom, United States, and Spain, informing acquisitions at the National Gallery of Modern Art (Rome), Museo del Novecento, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (Rome), and regional museums in Veneto, Friuli Venezia Giulia, and Lombardy. Its legacy appears in scholarship from university presses at Harvard University, Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Columbia University Press, and archival holdings at the Archivio di Stato di Venezia and the Fondazione Giorgio Cini. Curators and critics who emerged from its milieu later worked at the Tate Modern, Guggenheim Museum, Galleria degli Uffizi, Museo Reina Sofía, and the New Museum.
Situated in historic Venice quarters near landmarks such as the Piazza San Marco, the gallery occupied premises comparable in scale to spaces at the Palazzo Grassi and Ca' Rezzonico, engaging with restoration projects linked to the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage and the Istituto Centrale per il Restauro. The site’s urban context connected it to infrastructures like the Canal Grande, the Rialto Bridge, and transport nodes serving visitors from Trieste, Milan, Rome, Florence, and international travelers arriving via Marco Polo Airport.
The gallery produced exhibition catalogs, essays, and bulletins that circulated among institutions such as the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, the Getty Research Institute, and the The Frick Collection. Contributors included critics and historians associated with Il Giornale dell'Arte, Frieze, Artforum, Artnews, Art in America, The Burlington Magazine, Apollo (magazine), and academic journals published by JSTOR partner presses. Its printed matter informed scholarship at universities including Università Ca' Foscari Venezia, Università di Bologna, Università degli Studi di Padova, Sapienza University of Rome, and Politecnico di Milano.
Category:Art galleries in Venice