Laura Mattioli (born 28 May 1950) is an Italian art historian, a collector and a curator. From 2013 until its 2024 closure, she was President of the Center for Modern Italian Art in New York City.

Early life and education

Mattioli was born in

Milan, Italy Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

. Her father was the Milanese collector

Gianni Mattioli Gianni Mattioli (1903 – 1977) was an Italian businessman, a cotton trader in Milan, and an art collector, particularly of the work of the Italian Futurists. Mattioli was born in Milan in 1903, and started collecting in the early 1920s, but m ...

, who started collecting during the Second World War, building his collection in 1943, after he saw the first massacre of Jews carried out by the Nazis in Italy. In 1949, he acquired 87 works from fellow Italian collector Pietro Feroldi. Mattioli's childhood was unconventional and most of her younger years were spent with nannies and, rather than friends, artists, critics and intellectuals her parents would see regularly including modernist

Mario Sironi Mario Sironi (May 12, 1885 – August 13, 1961) was an Italian Modernism, Modernist artist who was active as a painter, sculptor, illustrator, and designer. His typically somber paintings are characterized by massive, immobile forms. Biography ...

, art historian Fernanda Wittgens,

Giorgio Morandi Giorgio Morandi (July 20, 1890 – June 18, 1964) was an Italian painter and printmaker widely known for his subtly muted still-life paintings of ceramic vessels, flowers, and landscapes—their quiet, meditative quality reflecting the artist's ...

Fortunato Depero Fortunato Depero (30 March 1892 – 29 November 1960) was an Italian Futurism (art), futurist painter, writer, sculptor, and graphic designer. Biography Although born in Fondo or in the neighboring village of Malosco, according to other sou ...

Giacomo Manzù Giacomo Manzoni (22 December 1908 – 17 January 1991), known professionally as Giacomo Manzù, was an Italian sculptor. Biography Manzù was born in Bergamo. His father was a shoemaker and sacristan. Other than a few evening art classes ...

and Marino Marini . Her art education includes studying at

Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, colloquially the Catholic University of Milan () or simply the Cattolica, is an Italian private research university founded in 1921. Its main campus is located in Milan, Italy, with satellite campuses in B ...

in Milan (

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

History of Art The history of art focuses on objects made by humans for any number of spiritual, narrative, philosophical, symbolic, conceptual, documentary, decorative, and even functional and other purposes, but with a primary emphasis on its aesthetics ...

), Università degli Studi in Milan ( BS in

Art History Art history is the study of Work of art, artistic works made throughout human history. Among other topics, it studies art’s formal qualities, its impact on societies and cultures, and how artistic styles have changed throughout history. Tradit ...

) and Liceo Giuseppe Parini in Milan.

Career

Mattioli had not planned to be involved in art. Her father had other ideas and had Laura begin training in art history with a family friend. From 1975 to 1981, she taught at the Università degli studi di Milano and at the

Accademia Carrara The Accademia Carrara, (), officially Accademia Carrara di Belle Arti di Bergamo, is an art gallery and an academy of fine arts in Bergamo, in Lombardy in northern Italy. The art gallery was established in about 1780 by , a Bergamasco collecto ...

from 1992 to 1999. Along with teaching, Mattioli has organized many exhibitions including: * Barry X Ball. ''Pietà''. 2018.

Museo d'Arte Antica The Museo d'Arte Antica ('Museum of Ancient Art') is an art museum in the Castello Sforzesco in Milan, in Lombardy in northern Italy. It has a large collection of sculpture from late antiquity and the medieval and Renaissance periods. The variou ...

Milan, Italy. * ''Metaphysical Masterpieces 1916-1920: Morandi, Sironi, and Carrà''. October 2018–June 2019. CIMA, New York. * Barry X Ball,
Portraits and Masterpieces in Venice
, 4 June - 11 September 2011
Museo del Settecento Veneziano di Ca’ Rezzonico
* ''Giorgio Morandi et l’abstraction du réel''. June–September 2010. , Toulon, France. *

Boccioni Umberto Boccioni (; ; 19 October 1882 – 17 August 1916) was an influential Italian painter and sculptor. He helped shape the revolutionary aesthetic of the Futurism movement as one of its principal figures. Despite his short life, his approach ...

br>pittore scultore futurista, Palazzo Reale, Milan
(6 October 2006 – 25 February 2007) * ''Morandi Ultimo, nature morte 1950–1964'', December 1997–February 1998, Galleria dello Scudo, Verona; April–September 1998.

Peggy Guggenheim Collection The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is an art museum on the Grand Canal in the Dorsoduro ''sestiere'' of Venice, Italy. It is one of the most visited attractions in Venice. The collection is housed in the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, an 18th-century ...

, Venice. * Boccioni’s Materia: A Futurist Masterpiece and the European Avant-Garde In 2003, she wrote an essay for the book "The Mattioli Collection: Masterpieces of the Italian Avant-garde" by Italian Art Historian Flavio Fergonzia. In 1999, she edite
Foppa e la Cappella Portinari, Milan
which includes her essay, "I restauri: interventi e interpretazioni (The restorations, interventions and interpretations)." Since 1983 she has been the curator responsible for the collection of her father, Gianni Mattioli. Mattioli established the

Center for Italian Modern Art The Center for Italian Modern Art (Cima) was an American art museum and research center in the SoHo district of Manhattan, in New York thatspecialized in Italian modern and contemporary art. It existed as a 501(c)(3) organization from 2013 to 2024 ...

, a public nonprofit exhibit and research center, in 2013.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mattioli, Laura Italian art curators Italian art collectors People from Milan Fondo Ambiente Italiano 1950 births Living people