1979
ROSA GIOVANNA MAGNIFICO PANZA DI BIUMO
Collector
THE MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART, LOS ANGELES
Art was like a secret language that my late husband and I shared. We chose almost all of the works in our collection together. A simple glance between us was enough to understand if we felt the same way about a piece. We had the same sensibility and the same philosophical way of looking at art. Perhaps the only difference was that I used to choose with my gut and my heart, Giuseppe with his eyes and his brain. In the early years of our collecting, I was raising five children and couldn’t follow him everywhere, but because of this shared mentality, I always knew I would like what he brought back.
Before we were married, my husband made a trip across America and fell in love with its energy, innovations, and strength. This drew him to American art as a new field to explore, and also influenced him to join the board of a new museum in Los Angeles, The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA). That is where we met fellow collectors Eli and Edye Broad, major supporters of the museum from the late 1970s to this day.
We stayed with the Broads many times during our frequent trips to L.A. for MOCA board meetings, and they spoiled us with their generosity. I remember countless dinners and meetings with friends in their home. The first time I went to Los Angeles was in the 1970s—it’s a city you can only love little by little. At first sight, Europeans like us are frightened by its scale, but with time you grow to like the foggy mornings, the bright sunsets, the vitality of a city always growing, always new.
When we were seeking a good home for part of our collection, MOCA seemed a natural choice. Eli convinced the museum’s board that it had to have our collection, arguing that the works my husband and I had so lovingly chosen—with pieces by artists like Mark Rothko and Robert Rauschenberg—would only grow in importance and esteem. Eli and my husband nego-tiated the sale one afternoon in the Broads’ living room, writing it all out on paper. Then we went to dinner and that was that.
Courtyard detail / © Esto Photographers: Denis Freppel
After this first sale, two other parts of our collection were acquired by MOCA; the third and final one represented ten Los Angeles artists. An exhibition featuring the entire acquisition opened to the public in 1999. To see so many different works hanging next to one another and realize how much they had in common—across cultures, across time—was very moving. We could step back and see the hidden threads that had guided us through the years, and we were so delighted to be able to give this gift to Los Angeles. For my husband, witnessing our life’s effort in art, having built something of substance that was not about observing trends but following our passion, was truly special. Not long after, he had a stroke and his life changed a lot, but that was a moment we would never forget.
Installation view of Njideka Akunyili Crosby’s Obodo (Country/City/Town/Ancestral Village) (2018; adhesive vinyl; courtesy of the artist and Victoria Miro, London/Venice) on the Grand Avenue facade of MOCA / Walter Smith