Di Donna Galleries
Di Donna Galleries specializes in museum-quality exhibitions and sales of European and American art from 1900 to 1970, with an emphasis on Surrealism. The gallery also advises private and institutional clients in building distinguished collections; it has placed important works of art in private collections and museums worldwide.
Founded in 2010 by Emmanuel Di Donna, formerly Vice Chairman of Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art Worldwide, Di Donna Galleries has organized monographic exhibitions of work by René Magritte, André Masson, and Andy Warhol, among others—in addition to ambitious group exhibitions. Di Donna Galleries opened a state-of-the-art space on Manhattan’s Upper East Side in 2016 with the inaugural exhibition, “Paths to the Absolute: Kandinsky, Malevich, Mondrian, Newman, Pollock, Rothko, and Still,” uniting masterworks that exemplify two defining moments in the evolution of European and American abstract painting.
Subsequent exhibitions have included: “A Surrealist Banquet;” “Nuvolo and Post-War Materiality 1950-1965,” curated by Germano Celant; “Moon Dancers: Yup’ik Masks and the Surrealists,” organized in collaboration with Donald Ellis Gallery; “A Passion for Collecting: Modern Works from the Juan Antonio Pérez Simón Collection;” the Modern sculpture exhibition “The Life of Forms” and “Surrealism in Mexico,” which brought together rare works of art from private and institutional collections in Mexico, the United States, and Europe to highlight the spirit of community and creativity that existed among Surrealist emigrés in Mexico during World War II. In Fall 2019 we featured “Enigma & Desire: Man Ray Paintings,” organized in collaboration with Andrew Strauss of the Man Ray Expertise Committee, it was the first survey exhibition to focus on Man Ray’s paintings and revealed the radicality of Man Ray’s thought and practice throughout his career, solidifying his historical position as a prophetic painter and theorist.
In Spring/Summer 2020, Di Donna Galleries hosted the final and third installment of the “Maria Helena Vieira da Silva” exhibition which will span the entire career of Vieira da Silva (b. 1908, Lisbon; d. 1992, Paris), a key member of Paris’s post-war art community, known for paintings that reflect her keen sense of rhythm and pattern. The exhibition travels to Di Donna as part of a landmark tour in collaboration with Jeanne Bucher Jaeger, Paris, and Waddington Custot, London.
Di Donna Galleries participates annually in Art Basel in Switzerland and Miami Beach and in TEFAF New York. We are a member of The Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA).
