A project to reveal the hidden treasure of corporate art collections

On Monday 6 May 2024, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo hosted the launch of "Il segno dell’arte nelle imprese. Le collezioni corporate italiane per l’arte moderna e contemporanea", a monograph on Italian corporate collections of modern and contemporary art. The book, promoted by Confindustria and sponsored by the Ministry of Culture, explores the hidden art treasures of Italian companies.

The initiative has the great merit of bringing to light the contribution of the business world to art, Its main focus of attention are collections that bring together works dating from between 1870 (the conventional date for the birth of modern art) and 2024.

The book, published by Marsilio Art and edited by Ilaria Bonacossa with the support of the Bracco Foundation, contains photographs and histories of 57 collections of modern and contemporary art being looked after by private Italian companies.

As part of this extraordinary project, the Bracco Foundation has displayed its collection of works by the talented painter Angiolo D'Andrea. Renowned for his mastery of colourism both in his portraits and in his landscapes, the artist, a master of twentieth-century Symbolism who originated in Friuli, forged a special bond with Milan and the Bracco family. D'Andrea's artistic legacy was in large part saved from the bombs of World War II by the founder of the Group, Elio Bracco. An interest in art has remained a distinctive trait of the Bracco family ever since.

The Bracco Foundation has already commemorated the painter with an exhibition called “Angiolo D'Andrea. La riscoperta di un Maestro tra Simbolismo e Novecento” (‘The rediscovery of a Master of Symbolism and the twentieth century’), which aimed to disseminate knowledge of his work and explore the interweaving of his art with momentous historical events and the relationships he cultivated with patrons and clients. >See here for more on the exhibition