Fortunato Depero Gallery Museum, Rovereto

A museum-workshop, unique in Italy, realizes the project conceived by Depero.

The Fortunato Depero Futurist Art House is the third location of Mart (in addition to those in Trento and Rovereto) and was inaugurated after a long period of renovation in January 2009 on the centenary of Futurism. It is not just a museum, but a workshop that fully realizes the project conceived by Depero in 1919 and only partially completed in 1959 in the historic building of the Fortunato Depero Gallery Museum, one year before his death. Next to the room where the large felt panels are displayed, which constitute the most precious and original treasure of Depero’s entire collection, there are spaces dedicated especially to the years 1917–1918, a period of extraordinary creativity for the young Depero in contact with the international world of Diaghilev’s Russian Ballets, and to the years 1928–1930, the so-called New York period.

The only example of a futurist museum created in Italy by a futurist himself, the idea was born in 1957 with an agreement signed between Depero and the Municipality of Rovereto which, in exchange for the author’s artistic production, allocated a building from medieval Rovereto, the former Monte di Pietà headquarters, to permanently house the works of the futurist master. About 3,000 objects left by the artist to the city, including paintings, drawings, felt and boxwood panels, collages, posters and flyers, furniture, toys, and applied art products. The collection also provides an excellent overview of the entire Italian Futurism movement.

The reopening of the venue also completes a museographic route that guides the visitor through the historic center of Rovereto.