The Robert Olnick Pavilion Opens in the Hudson Valley

It was 2017 when collector couple Nancy Olnick and Giorgio Spanu bowed Magazzino Italian Art in a sleek, 20,000-square-foot concrete building by architect Miguel Quismondo, bringing large-scale arte povera to Cold Spring, New York. (Remarkably, the museum hosted a comprehensive Piero Gilardi exhibition that closed just two months before his death last year.) Now, near the main building on the 9-acre site, where miniature Sardinian donkeys roam free, the Robert Olnick Pavilion has opened. In memory of Olnick’s father, the new three-level structure is a collaboration between Quismondo and Alberto Campo Baeza, the architect of the couple’s nearby home, and provides an additional 3,600 square feet for presenting Olnick Spanu’s modern and contemporary Italian art, along with significant works on loan, which, this fall, include paintings by Mario Schifano, Ettore Spalletti sculptures, and Murano glass masterpieces by Carlo Scarpa. The galleries are joined by education/auditorium space, a museum store, and Café Silvia, serving Italian cuisine, of course.