Founded in Rome in February 1954 by Plinio De Martiis, the Galleria La Tartaruga, from the moment it opened, took on an important role in the development of avant-garde Italian art. After hosting, over the course of the 1950s, a number of important exhibitions, including the first European solo shows of Franz Kline and Cy Twombly, in the early 1960s it was one of the first Italian exhibition venues to foster relations with the United States and the first to promote Pop Art in the Rome, becoming a point of reference for the group of young artists who were to become the members of so-called 'Italia Pop, ' better known as the 'Scuola di Piazza del Popolo': Franco Angeli, Mario Ceroli, Tano Festa, Giosetta Fioroni, Renato Mambor, Mario Schifano, and Cesare Tacchi.
This book is the first analytical study of the gallery's activity, examining the crucial years from 1954 to 1968, at the same time providing an accurate chronological reconstruction of all of the exhibition and publishing activities that took place until the death of the gallerist in 2004. Based on a meticulous investigation of the gallery archive, this book provides data, extracts of publications, and mostly unpublished photographic material.
Ilaria Bernardi (1985) is a curator and has a Ph.D. in art history. In her previous collaborations she has worked, among others, with Germano Celant and, at the Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, with Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev. Her monographic texts include Opere e Archivi. Mara Coccia e Daniela Ferraria (SilvanaEditoriale, Milan 2020), La Tartaruga. Storia di una galleria (Postmedia Books, Milan 2018); Giulio Paolini. Opere su carta (Prinp - Editoria d'Arte 2.0, Turin 2017); Arte e Impresa. Omaggio a Marco Rivetti (Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Turin 2017); Vincenzo Agnetti. Testimonianza (Gli Ori, Pistoia 2015); Teatro delle mostre. Roma, maggio 1968 (Scalpendi editore, Milan 2014).
