Rome

The Schifano case: cataloguing the work between litigation and international revival

In order to restore an international dimension to the artist, the mapping of the work from the 1960s onwards has begun, a second tome will follow: a registry with the complete archive and online a platform will collect the entire corpus

by Giuditta Giardini

26 March 2026

5' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

Key points

A difficult and ever-expanding catalogue
The Catalogue as a 'fort' to protect artistic production threatened by fakes
Catalogue to relaunch an artist 'ostracised' abroad

5' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

The Catalogo ragionato dell'opera pittorica 1960-1969 by Mario Schifano (1934-1998) was presented in Rome on 25 March. The catalogue, published by Skira, is divided into two volumes and costs 350 euros. The event is part of the review linked to the "Mario Schifano" exhibition at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni, open to the public from 17 March to 12 July 2026. The book was edited by art historian Marco Meneguzzo and byMonica De Bei Schifano, the artist's widow, who together with her son Marco Giuseppe looks after the Mario Schifano Archive as heir.

Reprinted six or seven times during its gestation, the catalogue presents itself as an 'atypical publishing project'. More than a simple catalogue raisonné, constructed with scientific rigour according to the strictest archival criteria, the publication, especially in the first tome, restores not only the artist's work, but also his life and the international atmosphere that gravitated around the Rome of those years.

Ambient photographs, actions and performances alternate with private images portraying Schifano alongside central figures of the cultural scene of the time, such as Frank O'Hara, Andy Warhol, The Rolling Stones, Anita Pallenberg, Marianne Faithfull, Alberto Moravia, Dacia Maraini and Sandro Penna. What emerges is a rich and enthralling excursus through a crucial decade, marked by the birth of fundamental cycles such as 'Monochromes', 'Esso' and 'Coca-Cola', 'Anaemic Landscapes', 'Futurism Revisited', 'True Love', 'Tuttestelle', 'Oasis' and 'Compagni Compagni'. Bringing the narrative even more alive are the 'narrated' captions, which analyse execution details, artistic intentions and the stories hidden behind works and photographs.
For the following decades, a similar model will probably be followed: a first tome 'the best of' will be followed by a second tome: a registry with the complete archive, work by work, while a progressive online platform will be developed to collect the artist's entire corpus.

Da sinistra a destra: Marco Meneguzzo, Marco Delogu, Monica De Bei Schifano, Luca Massimo Barbero e Daniela Lancioni.

A difficult and ever-expanding catalogue

The archiving of Mario Schifano's works was complex, mainly due to disputes between the heirs and the M.S. Multistudio Foundation. After the artist's death in 1998, the Foundation (today the M.S. Multistudio Foundation) was established to preserve and protect his work and has gradually built up an important archive. In 2003, Monica De Bei left the Foundation and created, together with her son Marco Giuseppe, the'Archivio Mario Schifano. The heirs then started various legal proceedings against the Foundation, at the end of which it was ruled that it could issue expertise on the works attributed to the artist, but not use his name in the name, nor present itself as the only entity authorised to certify authenticity (Trib. Rome, 9 July 2010). In 2008, the Foundation, together with the University of Genoa, published the 'Methodological Study', a six-volume work containing the computerised cataloguing of approximately 24,000 works. The heirs, through the Mario Schifano Archive, took legal action for copyright infringement. While the Court of Appeal of Milan had initially attributed the publication to the exception of citation under Art. 70 of the LdA, the Court of Cassation (8 February 2022, no. 4038) ruled out that the reproduction of the works in their entirety falls within the scope of free uses. It clarified that such uses are permitted only if they are limited, functional for purposes of criticism, discussion or research, and not in competition with the economic exploitation of the work, which includes any form of reproduction suitable for entering the relevant market, including photographic reproduction.

A further obstacle to archiving, Monica De Bei Schifano explained, concerned the scarcity of documentation for the period 1960-1969: 'For the 1960s we had very few images. We hired investigators and photographers to track down and document the works. It was only after three or four years from the start of the research that we started to get results'.

At an early stage, it was precisely the lack of iconographic material that prompted the curators to re-photograph the works, as the available images did not render the colours correctly. Once new reproductions were obtained, for some works it was necessary to rethink the layout and devote an entire page to them. The volume also includes photographs from interviews and press reviews, crowning a work that lasted more than seven years.

Further complicating the project was the late emergence of new works. As Monica De Bei Schifano points out: 'It was important to start and deliver a milestone. Perhaps tomorrow another work might emerge that we did not have". And indeed: 'Some works, three or four, only emerged after the publication of the catalogue raisonné and were made available online. This continuous and progressive flow of new images also made the editorial work particularly complex. The catalogue was in fact re-paginated six or seven times in the course of its gestation.

The Catalogue as a 'fort' to protect artistic production threatened by forgeries

After the gang of counterfeiters from Bari, arrested in 2023, who had put thousands of fake paintings by Schifano on the market all over Italy, in July 2025, a well-known art dealer from Turin was investigated for receiving stolen goods in conspiracy with unknown persons and for the offence referred to in Article 518-quaterdecies, paragraph 2, of the Italian Criminal Code, for having put on sale works believed to be fake, including some famous 'palms' by Mario Schifano. A month earlier, similar proceedings, again concerning works by the artist, had been initiated against a dealer in Ravenna.

In this context, the already published catalogue, and subsequent ones, also assume a central role for the authentication of works. As curator Marco Meneguzzo observes, "one would never buy a fake by Schifano if he had an authentic one nearby": in authentic works, one can always recognise an intrinsic quality, a distinctive 'zest' that characterises the artist's production.

The catalogue is therefore configured, in the words of Luca Massimo Barbero, as a "small fortress": a vital testimony for those who wish to access an artistic universe that is still relevant today, in which the principle of the nonconsumption of the image and the idea of a continuous work on it, susceptible to transformations and constant re-elaborations, emerge.

Catalogue to relaunch an artist 'ostracised' abroad

Published in Italian and English, the catalogue also serves as a tool to relaunch Mario Schifano's international dimension. It is no coincidence that his relationship with the global art system was marked by tensions and ruptures, such as the one with Ileana Sonnabend's gallery, which, according to the curators, also matured as a result of disagreements over the direction of his artistic production: Schifano refused to adapt to the demands of the international market, opposing the idea of coming second after already established artists such as Jasper Johns, and the pressure to produce further works, such as the 'Monochromes', which he no longer intended to produce. His work thus experienced forms of ostracism especially in the United Kingdom and the United States. The position catalogue, therefore, in a context in which, as it is recalled, 'Schifano must resume his international path'.

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