{"id":15979,"date":"2025-09-26T08:31:48","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T06:31:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/?post_type=magazine&p=15979"},"modified":"2025-09-26T08:31:48","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T06:31:48","slug":"ileana-sonnabend-museum-mantua","status":"publish","type":"magazine","link":"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/en\/magazine\/ileana-sonnabend-museum-mantua\/","title":{"rendered":"Who was Ileana Sonnabend, the brilliant patron"},"content":{"rendered":"There are lives marked by nomadism, by a \u201cgypsy soul\u201d. Which many think of as just a need for movement and new experiences. But the gypsy soul \u2012 in its best form \u2012 is something more structured: on the one hand, it thrives on independence, unconventionality, and substantial autonomy; on the other, it must anchor itself somewhere to avoid wandering aimlessly. Those who have it never stay where others think they should. They are cosmopolitan, citizens of the world, curious about everything and at ease everywhere. And the risk of being too scattered \u2012which they do indeed run \u2012 can be balanced by discipline, self-centring, and pragmatism.
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\r\nThis was the case for Ileana Sonnabend, a gallery owner, patron, and art dealer born in Bucharest and later naturalized American. Her surname at birth \u2012 25 October 1914 \u2012 was Schapira. Her father, Mihai, was a very wealthy industrialist, and her family was Jewish. Her mother, Marianne, was Austrian, a circumstance that had a significant influence on her. As Antonio Homen would recall, \u201cThe important place for the family was Vienna… Ileana used to say that her interest in art was born from being left for entire days at the museum in Vienna while her mother and sister went shopping\u201d.
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WHO WAS ILEANA SONNABEND<\/h2>
\r\nLittle Miss Schapira had a sheltered and happy childhood and adolescence (Bucharest, in the early twentieth century, was a vibrant and culturally stimulating city). At a certain point, though, her nomadic spirit emerged. \u201cI couldn\u2019t wait to get married\u201d, she said. \u201cI met Leo. He was different from the others. He wanted to move. He was leaving soon, and since I wanted to leave Romania at all costs, I married him\u201d. Leo Castelli was a wealthy Italian art collector and dealer, later called \u201cthe most important gallery owner of the twentieth century\u201d. His surname at birth was Krausz, but he later took his mother\u2019s last name due to anti-Semitism and the racial laws. His close ties to Italy were shared by Ileana, who often spent holidays with her family in Venice and Naples as a child.
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\r\nThe two married in October 1933, then moved to Paris and opened an art gallery. But times were quite tough. The city was invaded by the Germans, so in 1941 the couple moved to New York. It was there, during those years, that so-called Action painting was born, which Leo was a key figure in. The Castellis began to amass a collection of important works of art and, in 1957, opened a gallery. We\u2019re talking Neo-Dada, Pop Art, Roy Lichtenstein, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, and many others. \u201cL’air du temps\u201d was really blowing.
\r\n

THE SONNABEND COLLECTION<\/h2>
\r\nThen Ileana fell in love with the literary figure Michael Sonnabend and, after divorcing, married him. In 1962, the Sonnabends founded the eponymous gallery in Paris, showcasing not only American artists but also Italians like Schifano and Pistoletto. Italy was always a draw for Ileana, as demonstrated by her collaboration with the Incontri Internazionale d\u2019Arte for the Contemporanea<\/em> exhibition, commissioned by art patron Graziella Buontempo in the underground space of Villa Borghese. In 1970, Sonnabend travelled to New York, and moved back shortly thereafter. Naturally, she established a branch of the gallery, which became an international reference point for European and American art of the time. Visionary and pragmatic, she remained a great talent scout (in 1986, with Neo-Geo<\/em>, she put Jeff Koons in the spotlight). It was 2007 when the brilliant \u201chunter\u201d of genius \u2012 \u201cloving hunter\u201d, as Bonito Oliva called her \u2012 passed away.
\r\n
\r\nAlessandra Necci<\/strong>","protected":false},"featured_media":15922,"template":"","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categorie_magazine":[343],"class_list":["post-15979","magazine","type-magazine","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","categorie_magazine-words-from-marte"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWho was Ileana Sonnabend, the brilliant patron - Marsilio Arte<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Alessandra Necci retraces the life of art patron Ileana Sonnabend, whose collection is the centrepiece of the Sonnabend Collection Mantova\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/en\/magazine\/ileana-sonnabend-museum-mantua\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Who was Ileana Sonnabend, the brilliant patron\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Alessandra Necci retraces the life of art patron Ileana Sonnabend, whose collection is the centrepiece of the Sonnabend Collection Mantova\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/en\/magazine\/ileana-sonnabend-museum-mantua\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Marsilio Arte\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/MarsilioArte\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Ileana-Sonnabend-photographed-by-Lina-Bertucci-at-the-Sonnabend-Gallery-New-York-1989-scaled.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2529\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@MarsilioArte\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/en\/magazine\/ileana-sonnabend-museum-mantua\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/en\/magazine\/ileana-sonnabend-museum-mantua\/\",\"name\":\"Who was Ileana Sonnabend, the brilliant patron - 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