Firsthand: Marisa Volpi and the critical reception of U.S. art in 1960s Italy

In Arte dopo il 1945. U.S.A (1969), the female critic and art historian Marisa Volpi publishes her reflections on modern and contemporary American art after a six-month-long stay supported by a Fulbright scholarship. Her account evaluates the role of American collectors, museums and vibrant art markets in promoting U.S. artists at the local and international level. Also, Volpi closely analyzes the ideas and forms generated by the protagonists of Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, and Minimalism. She looks at the impact of European artists on the North American scene, yet profoundly appreciates the autonomous visual language that developed in the U.S. Her sources mostly include English-speaking scholars and critics like Clement Greenberg, Harold Rosenberg, Meyer Shapiro, Frank O’Hara, and Lawrence Alloway, with some exceptions including peer Italian female critic Carla Lonzi.

Lonzi was a dear friend of Volpi’s and their intellectual exchange had been constant since the 1950s. Like Volpi, Lonzi did spend time in the U.S., writing a select number of exhibition reviews and editing her groundbreaking volume Self-Portrait (1969) while in Minneapolis.

This paper will compare Volpi’s book with contemporaneous contributions by Lonzi and other Italian writers who experienced the U.S. firsthand in the 1960s, at a time when young Italian critics became increasingly connected with the international art system. Through their writings, where preconceived ideas mix with new observations, the reader gets a taste of the Italian reception of the American art scene.