NOVEMBER 2007

The Museo ItaloAmericano —
One Of A Kind In The US

Building C, First Floor

When Giuliana Nardelli Haight founded the Museo ItaloAmericano in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood almost thirty years ago, it was the only art museum in the country dedicated to the works of Italian and Italian American artists. Technically it still is. A tiny Italian American Museum exists in New York City, but it is located in a temporary site in an office building. There are plans to move the museum to a permanent site in Little Italy, and the museum’s curator traveled to San Francisco to seek the advice of the Museo ItaloAmericano’s Managing Director, Paola Bagnatori.

“She came to pick my brain,” Bagnatori said with a laugh.

Paola Bagnatori has been a part of the Museo ItaloAmericano almost since its beginning. She first became involved when she was invited to be a participant in a conference on Italian American women in the professions. She was a professor of Italian at San Francisco State University at the time. It was 1979, not quite a year after Nardelli Haight had established the museum in a walk-up mezzanine above North Beach’s Café Malvina.

“Giuliana was very focused on art. She was very knowledgeable. She showed famous artists in the early stages of their careers,” Bagnatori said and continued in her praise for the Museo’s founder, “She really had an eye for what was important. But we soon realized that unless you have a big endowment, you have to have other activities — you have to have a membership.”

Meanwhile the Museo had moved from the tiny space above Malvina’s to larger quarters on the third floor of the Fugazi Building. And it was in that period that another important figure entered into Museo history — the late restaurateur and art collector Modesto Lanzone.

“I brought Modesto in because I’d known him a long, long time. And I always thought he was very interested in modern art and he had an incredible collection…so I told him about it (the Museo). He was a very generous man.”

According to an unpublished memoir of Lanzone by former Museo Executive Director Robert Whyte, Lanzone not only donated important works by Italian and Italian American artists, he also arranged for many artists to donate works to the Museo. One of those pieces is the jewel of the Museo’s permanent collection — Tavola della Memoria II, Arnaldo Pomodoro’s magnificent bronze relief which is on permanent display in the Museo’s galleries.

Lanzone was also involved in another important milestone in the Museo’s history. Again according to Whyte, Lanzone inspired the Museo Board to make the move to Fort Mason Center (FMC) in 1985.

Asked how she felt about FMC more than twenty years later, Bagnatori answered, “I love Fort Mason — I think there is no more beautiful place.” And, because of the increase in foot traffic, she is very happy that the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library’s Book Bay Bookstore has moved across the hall in Building C. “The coming of Book Bay was a godsend,” she said.

Asked how she sees the role of the Museo nearly thirty years after its founding, she said that its mission remains the same: “to present and preserve the best of what Italians and Italian Americans are, whether through art, language classes, lectures, etc.” She also expressed her anger at the negative stereotypes of Italian Americans in popular culture and said one of her personal goals was to counteract those images. “I am so sick of the stereotypes!”

Bagnatori also pointed out that although there are many Italian and Italian American organizations in the Bay Area, the Museo is the only one with a permanent location that is open all year round. Consequently, another role of the Museo is to provide a venue for those organizations, and to that end, the Museo has collaborated with other organizations on programs and exhibits.

Besides the exhibits, classes, and lectures that the Museo produces, there are also other programs that the Museo sponsors. CIAO (Children’s Italian Art Outreach) provides free instruction in Italian art and history to more than 2,400 Bay Area school children annually.

EVVIVA is another group that is close to Bagnatori’s heart. It is the “young professionals” group and some of the current “younger” board members have been recruited from its ranks. “If we don’t get the young people involved, when we old people die, then the Museo is in danger of disappearing.” Amusingly, though, Bagnatori’s definition of “young” is very broad, as she admits that anyone younger than social security age is welcome to join EVVIVA. “Don’t forget,” she said with a laugh, “everyone is saying that 60 is the new 40!”

— Jovanne Reilly

Images:
"Planting The Roots Reaping The Harvest" 2006, Photo:
Janice Tong
Managing Director Paola Bagnatori, Photo: Bradford Gregory