Ileana Sonnabend Collection Opens in Mantua's Palazzo della Ragione

The newly restored Palazzo della Ragione in Mantua now houses the Sonnabend Collection, offering a comprehensive view of 20th-century art through the lens of legendary gallerist Ileana Sonnabend. Born Ileana Schapira in Bucharest in 1914, she married Leo Castelli in 1933 and moved to New York, where they collected works by Mondrian and Pollock. In 1957 they opened their first gallery, championing Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. After divorcing Castelli, she married Michael Sonnabend and founded Galerie Sonnabend in Paris in 1962, becoming the first European platform for American Pop Art and showcasing Italian artists like Mario Schifano and Michelangelo Pistoletto. Her gallery moved to New York's SoHo in 1971, helping transform the neighborhood into an art hub, and later to Chelsea. In the 1980s she discovered Jeff Koons, launching his career with the Neo-Geo exhibition. The Mantua exhibition presents her private collection as she lived with it, without adaptation to Italian context, creating a biographical itinerary. The gallery continued after her death in 2007.