About us…
The Mahler and LeWitt Studios is established around the former studios of Anna Mahler and Sol LeWitt in Spoleto, Italy. The residency program provides a focussed and stimulating environment for artists, curators and writers to develop new ways of working in dialogue with peers and the unique cultural heritage of the region.
The Torre Bonomo, a medieval tower once used as a residency and exhibition space by the gallerist Marilena Bonomo, is also central to the program. In the early 1970s, LeWitt was the Torre’s first resident: using it as a studio he made a seminal group of wall drawings which continue to offer a unique insight into his production.
Our program has its roots in the Anna Mahler Association residencies which began in 2010.
The Program
To learn about Open Call opportunities please join our mailing list. Separate to these open calls, the program is curated with the intention of carefully suiting individuals to the unique environment and resources we can offer. We do accept proposals and will reply to each personally: info@mahler-lewiitt.org.
Equality, diversity and inclusion
To read our policy please click here.
Who we are…
Hon. President: Marina Mahler
Hon. Artistic Advisor: David Gothard
Director: Eva LeWitt
Director & Curator: Guy Robertson (biog.)
Assistant Curator: Tommaso Faraci
Partners
Carla Fendi Foundation
Torre Bonomo, Valentina Bonomo
Anna Mahler Association
Festival di Spoleto
Artifex Press
Musica di Casa Menotti / Fondazione Monini
The Marignoli di Montecorona Foundation
Fitzcarraldo Editions
Mahler Foundation
Yale University Art Gallery
Director’s Circle
Agnes Gund
Charina Endowment Fund
Patrons
Chelsea Arts Club Trust, Barry Flanagan Curatorial Award
Karen Bechtel and Will Osborne
Laure Genillard
Doran Family Foundation
Goldstone Family Foundation
Jane Katcher
Jill and Peter Kraus
Marina Mahler
Tom Sachs
The LeWitt Collection
Clifford Ross and Nicolette Donen
Matthew Stephenson Fine Art Consultancy
Sylvia and Robert Mangold
Adam and Lorraine Weinberg
Friends
May Calil
Ross Chalmers
Asaf Cohen
Claudia DeMonte and Ed McGowan
Gabriella De Ferrari
Chester Prescott
Bréon George Rydell
Steven Henry & Philip Shneidman
Bree Jeppson and James Bassett
Bruce Josephy
Carol LeWitt
Sofia LeWitt
Lucinda Lovell
Laura Mattioli
Carine Menache
Nicola Pizzoni
Nancy Rosen
Anthony Sansotta
Sue Sbrolla and Edward Alger Jr
Jill Segal
Garry Scott-Irvine
Alma Zevi
We are grateful to all the individuals and organisations who have supported the program, including The Marignoli di Montecorona Foundation, Inlaks Shivdasani Foundation, Stanley Thomas Johnson Foundation, The Danish Arts Council, Hannah Barry Gallery, Union Pacific, The Sunday Painter.
Spoleto Art Network
Contacts
info@mahler-lewitt.org
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Anna Mahler
Anna Mahler (1904 – 1988), daughter of Gustav and Alma, began her career as a painter tutored by Giorgio de Chirico in Rome. Under the encouragement of Fritz Wotruba, a great friend, she found her medium sculpting stone, abstract imaginations of the human figure. Her practice also included using clay to sensitively mould the personalities of bust portraits, often reputed composers or writers from the Viennese avant-garde circles. Quoting the artist herself Ernst Gombrich wrote how the value of her art “is not determined by superficial characteristics but by the ability to reach and touch our innermost feelings”. She first arrived in Spoleto in 1968 inspired to buy a home in Italy by a trip she made to Cortona a year earlier with her daughter Marina, who had suggested Italy rather than the English countryside as a place to live and work.
Sol LeWitt
Throughout his career Sol LeWitt (1928 – 2007) had a significant professional and personal relationship with Italy and in particular Spoleto in Umbria. His Italian gallerist, Marilena Bonomo, had a summerhouse on Monteluco overlooking Spoleto. She would invite the artists who she was representing to stay. Sol visited so frequently that Marilena suggested he buy his own house and in 1972 he bought a solitary cubic tower looking out from Monteluco. The walk from the house on Monteluco to the town of Spoleto is documented in his photo-grid book From Monteluco to Spoleto (1976). After marrying, he and Carol lived there almost continuously, throughout the 80s, and both their daughters, Sofia and Eva, were born in the town. It was around this time that he also started working from a studio in the old town.
Spoleto
As well as the Anna Mahler and Sol LeWitt studios, which have a special and inspiring atmosphere of their own, Spoleto boasts an impressive 20th Century art history thanks to the famous Festival Dei Due Mondi. The Spoletosfera, a geodesic dome built by Buckminster Fuller in 1967, stands near the gates of the old town and at the train station Alexander Calder built his largest stabile Teodelapio. Josef Beuys, Jasper Johns, Willem De Kooning, Lynn Chadwick, Henry Moore, Isamo Noguchi, David Smith, Cy Twombly were all in their own time absorbed by Spoleto. The Duomo boasts frescoes by Filippo Lippi and Pinturicchio. As well as museums there are several important art history libraries and a rich array of architecture, especially Longobard and Roman. The formidable Ponte delle Torri, a vast aqueduct, was marvelled at by Goethe and painted by Turner. Within a short drive are Piero della Francesca frescoes in Arezzo and those of Giotto in Assisi. Two of the most important centres of Italian ceramics, Deruta and Gubbio, are close by as are the key historical centres of the Etruscans and the Umbrii, Orvieto and Perugia respectively.