Municipal Art Gallery of Contemporary Art Antonio Sapone of Gaeta

The “Antonio Sapone” Municipal Art Gallery of Contemporary Art was founded in 2004 thanks to the push of a group of cultural operators gathered under the banner of the Associazione Culturale Novecento. Since 2006 it has been located in the historic Palazzo San Giacomo, built in the sixteenth century by the Florentine Spina family, near the Angevin castle and with a splendid view of the sea, also becoming the chosen seat of the "Porticato Gaetano" painting exhibition (so called for the place which hosted the exhibition in the first editions, the portico of the Virgilio elementary school, in Piazza della Libertà).

The “Porticato” was officially born in August 1958, completing a local artistic journey that began in the early 1950s with the commitment of the painters of the “Amici dell'Arte” club, with the authoritative participation of Domenico Purificazione; it is a simple installation, but the quality of the works is certainly innovative and stimulating: for the first time in the post-war period, the Gaetano public can admire many works together, many of which are far from the local visual culture, anchored in late nineteenth-century Neapolitan painting. In 1966 the last edition of the historical period of the Porticato was held, which would be resurrected twenty-five years later with the occasional editions of 1991 and 1999 (in the Angevin Castle).

Finally in 2008, at the XX Edition, the management of the "Porticato" passed to the Associazione Culturale Novecento. Since then, from year to year (last edition the XXXIV edition of 2022), the Gaeta art festival becomes an eagerly awaited annual event in the Territory, but also an opportunity for visibility for many artists from all over Italy. In the large spaces of the building, with the support of the Municipal Administration, the members of the Associazione Culturale Novecento have organized a prestigious exhibition space which houses a large and precious collection of national artists and a significant selection of works by artists linked to the southern Pontine territory.

The Collection today has over 1000 pieces including paintings, graphics, sculptures, installations, photographs and videos. Over the years, numerous exhibitions of twentieth-century masters have been organized and set up such as Hans Hartung, Alberto Magnelli and Ladislas Kijno, Carlo Montarsolo, Mario Persico, Andrea Sparaco, Gabriele Cena, Giancarlo Isola, Alberto Burri, who have made the Gaeta Art Gallery an important hub of the national circuit of figurative arts, as documented by the editorial line curated by the Associazione Culturale Novecento, dedicated to catalogues, biographies, essays and prestigious publications.