Thaddaeus Ropac opened its new gallery in central Milan on September 20th, marking the mega-galley’s seventh location worldwide. The inaugural exhibition, “L’aurora viene,” features works by Georg Baselitz and Lucio Fontana. The venue is in the Palazzo Belgoioso, a neoclassical building near the upscale shopping street Via Monte Napoleone. The Milan gallery occupies two rooms totalling 280 square meters.
“Milan is at Europe’s crossroads, Italy the continent’s heartbeat, a country that profoundly shaped the evolution of art through the ages and where crucial modern art movements were conceived,” founder Thaddaeus Ropac said in a press statement. “We increasingly felt Italy was missing from our constellation of European galleries, since it has always been important to how we have grown internationally and to our artists’ development.
Elena Bonanno di Linguaglossa will lead the Milan branch. Her three decades of experience include senior positions at New York’s Lévy Gorvy Dayan, Italian museum Fondazione Pastificio Cerere, and the now-closed Blain|Southern gallery, among others. “I’ve always greatly admired the outstanding selection of artists the gallery represents and the visionary approach Thaddaeus takes to working with them, as well as the way in which the programme has evolved in such compelling ways with the new artists who have joined in recent years,” she said in a press statement.
Founded in Salzburg in 1983 by Austrian gallerist Thaddaeus Ropac, the gallery has grown to represent more than 60 artists and estates. Early programming in Salzburg included exhibitions with Joseph Beuys, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Keith Haring. Today, the Salzburg headquarters is based at Villa Kast, a 19th-century townhouse in the Mirabell Gardens, supplemented by an additional exhibition hall opened in 2010.
The new gallery places Ropac amid Milan’s vibrant art community, including museums like the Pinacoteca di Brera, Palazzo Reale, Museo del Novecento, and Palazzo Citterio. The Museo del Novecento hosted a major exhibition from April 5th to June 29th, marking the centenary of Robert Rauschenberg, whose estate is represented by the gallery. Milan is already home to a bustling network of galleries, including MASSIMODECARLO and Cardi Gallery. Beyond the inaugural exhibition, Thaddaeus Ropac Milan’s program has yet to be announced.
Milan is also attracting growing attention from collectors and galleries, thanks in part to Italy’s enticing tax regime: wealthy individuals who relocate to the country pay a flat annual levy of €200,000 ($207,800) on foreign income. Gallerist Ben Brown—preparing to open a new branch in the city—described Milan as a “fiscal paradise” in an interview with Artsy. Other newcomers include Cadogan Gallery and Lehmann Maupin, which recently launched a “seasonal” gallery. This increased interest, bolstered by the annual miart fair, has made Milan one of Artsy’s emerging art capitals to watch in 2025. Ropac noted, “With the momentum of Milan as a destination for the arts, it’s a natural home for us.”
