A Trip To The Francesca and Massimo Valsecchi Collection in Palermo Photostory

In mid-June we visited Palazzo Butera in Palermo. It was bought by Francesca and Massimo Valsecchi in 2016 with the aim of creating a versatile center for arts and culture in Palermo, starts a first phase of contact with the city. Located it the city centre the Palazzo Butera collaborated with the peripatetic European Biennial, ‘Manifesta’, opening its first exhibition spaces to artists celebrating Palermo as Manifesta’s 2018 City of Culture.

The ground floor offers a reference library and many galleries for temporary exhibitions from both home and abroad. The first floor contains conference and events rooms. This area houses the Palace’s 18th century library. From 2020, the second floor accommodates a museum, displaying the Francesca & Massimo Valsecchi art collection, currently on long-term loan to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge and the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford (UK). 

Their gathering of artworks has taken some 50 years, and in a recent article published by the prestigious international art review, ‘Apollo’, Susan Moore writes that the collection is “the least known private holding of great art in London” (Apollo Magazine, June 2016). 

Among the highly prestigious works of art collected by the Valsecchi and on show in these rooms, there are paintings by Annibale Carracci, Edward Burne-Jones, Gilbert & George or Koloman Moser, watercolours by Arthur Melville or John Robert Cozens, British and European Furniture of the Great Exhibitions era, early Doccia porcelains or art nouveau French glasses.

For Francesca and Massimo Valsecchi, the formation of the collection has been disciplined by an insistence on quality and serious research. The fundamental idea behind the collection is the proposition that placing outstanding artworks from different worlds side by side, is a way to understand the ties that lie beneath apparent cultural differences. The collection is an experiment, igniting, through highly prestigious works of art from many cultures and historical ages, a profound educational mediation on cultural similarities; an important and unique contribution in the urgent debate on integration and immigration.

The collection is a must-see. So, check out our photos.

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