Galleria L’Obelisco became one of the defining galleries of postwar art in Rome. Founded in 1946 by Irene Brin and Gaspero del Corso, it welcomed Italian and international artists to 146 Via Sistina. Here, painting, sculpture, photography and fashion met within a lively network of friendships and cultural exchange.
Irene Brin and Gaspero del Corso
A writer and fashion journalist, Irene Brin was born Maria Vittoria Rossi. Her curiosity crossed the boundaries between art, literature and dress. Together with her husband, Gaspero del Corso, she gave the gallery a distinctive identity, combining an interest in new talent with an openness to different artistic languages.
The founders’ international connections helped bring artists and collectors into conversation. Their work also extended beyond the exhibition rooms through publications and the promotion of Italian artists abroad. As a result, L’Obelisco gallery became a meeting place for people and ideas moving between Rome, Europe and the United States.
An international outlook
Surrealism and fantastic imagery held an important place in the gallery’s program. Alongside Italian painters, L’Obelisco presented artists whose work opened onto dream, memory and imagined worlds.
Its exhibitions included Eugène Berman, Roberto Matta, Saul Steinberg and Alexander Calder. These encounters placed the gallery within a wider international exchange, giving Roman audiences opportunities to discover very different approaches to modern art.
→ Read about Eugène Berman: painting, theater and modern classicism
Landmark exhibitions at Galleria L’Obelisco
The opening years: Morandi, Maselli and Dalí
On November 23, 1946, an exhibition of Giorgio Morandi inaugurated the gallery. The choice established a connection with one of the most distinctive voices in modern Italian painting.
In 1948, Titina Maselli held her first solo exhibition at L’Obelisco. Her attention to everyday objects and urban life revealed the gallery’s interest in younger artists. An exhibition devoted to Salvador Dalí followed in November of the same year.
The 1950s: Burri and Rauschenberg
Alberto Burri’s Neri e Muffe, presented in 1952, marked an important encounter with his experiments in matter and surface.
Another decisive moment came on March 3–10, 1953, with Robert Rauschenberg’s Scatole e feticci personali, his first European solo exhibition. The small constructions assembled from found materials offered an unconventional approach to making and looking at art.
Together, these exhibitions show how readily the gallery engaged with work that challenged established expectations.
The 1960s and 1970s: new ways of seeing
Corrado Cagli exhibited sculpture at the gallery in April 1962. A few years later, Perpetuum mobile (1965) brought together artists exploring movement and visual perception, including Alberto Biasi, Bruno Munari and Alexander Calder.
The group exhibition Bianco+Bianco followed in 1966, with participants including Lucio Fontana, Piero Manzoni and Mario Schifano. In 1968, a series of exhibitions devoted to Giacomo Balla revisited different aspects of his work.
This spirit of inquiry continued with Videobelisco, launched in 1971, an early initiative in the history of video art in Italy.
The L’Obelisco archive and the gallery’s closure
Following Irene Brin’s death in 1969, Gaspero del Corso continued the gallery’s activities. Galleria L’Obelisco closed in 1981, the end date documented in recent scholarship on its history.
A substantial part of its documentary heritage is preserved at Rome’s Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea. The Fondo Irene Brin, Gaspero Del Corso e L’Obelisco contains correspondence, exhibition publications, administrative papers, photographs and personal documents.
The L’Obelisco archive brings the gallery’s daily life into focus, allowing its exhibitions to be studied alongside the relationships and practical work that made them possible.
Discover modern art at Egidi MadeinItaly
For collectors interested in postwar art in Rome, these histories offer a rewarding starting point for looking at individual works. Corrado Cagli, who exhibited at L’Obelisco, is also represented in our current selection.
→ View the available work by Corrado Cagli
→ Explore modern art for sale at Egidi MadeinItaly
