Galleria Museo “Fortunato Depero”, Rovereto

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

The Casa d’Arte Futurista Fortunato Depero is the third branch of the Mart (in addition to those in Trento and Rovereto) and was inaugurated, after a long period of renovation, in January 2009 on the occasion of the centenary of Futurism. It is not just a museum, but a laboratory that fully realizes the project conceived by Depero in 1919 and only partially completed in 1959 in the historic building of the Galleria Museo Fortunato Depero, one year before his death. Next to the room where the large fabric intarsias are displayed, which constitute the most precious and original treasure of the entire Depero collection, there are spaces dedicated particularly 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 of medieval Rovereto, the former headquarters of the Monte di pietà, to permanently house the works of the Futurist master. About 3,000 objects were left by the artist to the city, including paintings, drawings, fabric and boxwood intarsias, collages, posters and flyers, furniture, toys and applied art products. The collection also provides an excellent overview of the entire Italian Futurism.

 The reopening of the branch also completes a museographic path that leads the visitor through the historic center of Rovereto.