Collezione Milani Cardazzo

The Milani Cardazzo Collection brings twentieth-century art into Savona's Palazzo Gavotti. It preserves the artistic relationships of writer and artist Milena Milani and her companion, the gallerist Carlo Cardazzo.

Why it matters

The collection connects personal collecting with the galleries through which postwar art circulated. Cardazzo's activity at the Cavallino in Venice and the Naviglio in Milan links it with international exhibitions and the development of Spatialism around Lucio Fontana.

What to notice

Works include Giuseppe Capogrossi's Superficie 209, Picasso's Ritratto di Milena and Joan Miró's Femmes et oiseaux devant la lune. Other artists represented include Fontana, Jean Dubuffet, Man Ray and René Magritte. Portraits of Milani add a personal strand to the wider history of artistic exchange.

Context and history

Born in Savona in 1917, Milani established the foundation in memory of Cardazzo after his death in 1963. The collection's place within the civic gallery connects this modern inheritance with the older art preserved in Palazzo Gavotti, while retaining its distinct origins in their shared artistic world.