Arona's Ex-Slaughterhouse to Open Museo Fanny Usellini on September 26, 2026

Key facts

• The Museo d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea "Fanny Usellini" – Polo di Inclusione Sociale will open on September 26, 2026, at 11 AM in Arona, Italy.
• The museum is located at Via Trieste 10, in the former municipal slaughterhouse, a complex of about 1,770 square meters including buildings and an outdoor courtyard.
• The project began in 2019 and cost 2.19 million euros, with about two-thirds funded by Fondazione Cariplo and Regione Piemonte, and the rest by the Comune di Arona.
• On July 13, Mayor Alberto Gusmeroli received a donation of 556 paintings and sculptures valued at over one million euros from the Sansone-Usellini family at the Studio Notarile De Marchi in Milan.
• The collection is named after Fanny Usellini Sansone (Milan 1939–2018), daughter of painter Gianfilippo Usellini (Milan 1903–Arona 1971) and wife of art historian Luigi Sansone.
• The collection spans over a century of art, including works from Futurism, Second Futurism, MAC – Movimento Arte Concreta, Poesia Visiva, Fluxus, and Conceptual Art.
• Italian artists in the collection include Giorgio de Chirico, Lucio Fontana, Bruno Munari, Enrico Baj, Piero Manzoni, Fausto Melotti, Marino Marini, and Gianfilippo Usellini.
• International artists include Joseph Beuys, Salvador Dalí, Marc Chagall, Oskar Kokoschka, Antoni Tàpies, Victor Vasarely, and American Abstract Expressionists Mark Tobey, Paul Jenkins, Michael Goldberg, and Theodoros Stamos.
• The museum will function as a social inclusion hub, partnering with Cooperativa Sociale Il Ponte and Fondazione Mike to involve people with disabilities in daily activities such as reception, ticketing, and the café.
• Cultural Assessor Alessandra Marchesi described the donation as a gesture of extraordinary generosity and said the collection offers an intimate and lucid key to contemporary life.