CLAP Museum

CLAP — Comics, Lab, Art, Pescara — is Pescara's exhibition venue devoted to comics. Its permanent collection includes works by Andrea Pazienza, the Pescara-born artist who helped define Italian comic drawing in the 1980s.

Why it matters

The museum connects Pazienza's work with the city where he studied at the local art school. Its permanent collection includes more than 300 works — illustrations, paintings and preparatory sketches — acquired by Fondazione Pescarabruzzo over roughly two decades. The collection also includes donations from his teacher Sandro Visca and loans from private collections, including nine works from Pazienza's late Convergenze period.

What to notice

The permanent collection traces Pazienza's graphic development from his early strips to the fluid line of his mature pages. Works connected with his best-known characters sit alongside painted canvases that show his work with colour. The museum also presents artists associated with his circle, including Tanino Liberatore, Stefano Tamburini, Filippo Scozzari and Massimo Mattioli. A digitised Archivio d'Artista is dedicated to Sandro Visca and includes paintings, sculpture and woven tapestries.

Context and history

Fondazione Pescarabruzzo created CLAP in a converted contemporary building. It opened in December 2022 as Pescara's first venue devoted wholly to comics. Pazienza was born in the city in 1956 and took early artistic steps at the Misticoni art school. The permanent collection uses original works to connect his career with Pescara's cultural history.