The Barbara Paci Art Gallery was founded in 2003 in the historic center of Pietrasanta (Lucca), a town in Tuscany known internationally for its bronze foundries and marble workshops where sculptures by artists known all over the world have been made for centuries. Pietrasanta was also visited by great artists such as Henry Moore, Jacques Lipchitz and Marino Marini who lived and worked in Pietrasanta. Also for this reason the Gallery deals mainly with contemporary sculptors such as Aron Demetz, Javier Marin, Kan Yasuda, Fernando Botero, Novello Finotti and Massimiliano Pelletti. Besides dealing with painters such as Valerio Adami, Mimmo Paladino, Alessandro Busci, Massimo Giannoni, Giovanni Frangi and Andrea Collesano, the Gallery also offers photographers such as Aurelio Amendola, Rainer Elstermann and Roberto Kusterle. The choice of headquarters in Pietrasanta offers the Gallery visibility and direct contacts with artists and their ateliers from the interesting phase of creation in addition to collectors, critics, art dealers and art experts from all over the world and exclusively interested in contemporary art.
The Gallery began its exhibition activity in 2003 with a historical exhibition of unpublished drawings by the French artist Andrè Derain, coming from the homonymous Foundation in Paris. Over the years the Gallery has organized with its artists many solo and group exhibitions in institutional spaces, Italian and foreign museums as well as in its 2 exhibition spaces in Pietrasanta.
The summer of 2008 was dedicated to the exhibition with monumental works, entitled "De 3 en 3", by the Mexican artist Javier Marin organized and set up in Pietrasanta, in Piazza del Duomo and in the Sant'Agostino Complex (artist who participated twice in La Biennale di Venezia, he created an installation at Art Basel 2007 in Miami for the Bass Museum, and winner of the Beijing Biennale 2008). From 2008 to 2013 this monumental traveling exhibition of the Mexican artist, thanks to the great success gained in Pietrasanta, was hosted in many European cities: Rotonda di via Besana, Piazzetta Reale and Piazza del Teatro alla Scala - Milan (Italy); Musée Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique and Magritte Museum, Place Royale, Place de l'Albertine - Brussels (Belgium); Esplanade Francois Andrè - La Baule (France); Place Metz, Place Guillaume II, Place des Martyrs, Luxembourg - (Grand Duchy of Luxembourg); Lange Voorhout, Pulchri studium Museum - The Hague; - Holland; Museo MACRO Testaccio, Piazza del Pincio, Piazza San Lorenzo in Lucina, Rome (Italy). Another important collaboration between the gallery and institutional spaces was the solo exhibition "Toccare il tempo" by the Japanese artist Kan Yasuda, realized in 2011 in Turin in the Valentino Park and in Palazzo Ersel with monumental sculptures in bronze and marble.
In 2008, an exhibition of photographic works by the artist Agostino Rocco at the State Museum of Saint Cloud, Paris was realized. The exhibition was organized and promoted thanks to a synergistic collaboration between the Gallery and the Museum. It has been the purchaser of 18 photographic works whose theme is the contemporary reworking of male and female portraits of the French nobility dispersed or destroyed during the French Revolution. The first edition of each work remained the property of the Museum and was annexed to the state collection. In the Gallery itself in Pietrasanta, among others, we can mention the solo exhibition "Keimzeit" of the Italian sculptor Aron Demetz (artist who exhibited in 2009 in the Italian Pavilion at the 53 La Biennale di Venezia) realized in 2013 and then continued with the solo show of the same artist at the Hans Arp Museum in Cologne (Germany) in summer 2014. In 2020 the Gallery organized the exhibition "Looking forward to the past" by the artist Massimiliano Pelletti at the MARCA Musem in Catanzaro.
The Owner Barbara Paci obtained her first art degree, specializing in History of contemporary art, at the University of the Studies of Florence. She attended different updating institutional courses of Cultural Goods such as:
The Retrieval of Cultural Goods Certificate (promoted and managed together with the Superintendence of the artistic and Cultural Goods of Pisa, Friends of the Museums of Pisa, and the Arm of the Carabineers). Barbara also attended a course for the realization and administration of business in the artistic cultural sector, obtaining the 3rd award for the best project promoted and managed by Cassa di Risparmio di Lucca and the Superintendence of Artistic and Cultural Goods of Pisa.
Since 2003, she is the owner of the homonymous Gallery of Contemporary art in Pietrasanta, Via Garibaldi 45 and Piazza Duomo 25.
Barbara Paci also, collaborated for years with Public Institutions and Museum Authorities, for the realization of exhibitions and events of modern and contemporary art adding to those already mentioned:
Museo M.A.C.R.O. and Terrazza del Pincio for “Roma Capitale” – Rome (Italy)
Tuscany Region, Piaggio Museum", "Giovanni Alberto Agnelli" – Pontedera (Pisa – Italy).
Festival Giacomo Puccini Foundation, Torre del Lago Puccini (Lucca – Italy)
Israel museum of Jerusalem, (Israel)
Civic Museum "Giovanni Fattori", Ragghianti Foundation, Lucca (Italy)
Finally, she personally gave life, with her team of collaborators, to events and exhibitions of modern and contemporary art spaces in the following institutions:
City of Milan - MUDEC Museum of Cultures - Milan (Italy)
Pietrasanta - Department of Culture, Piazza Duomo and the church of St. Agostino - Pietrasanta (Lucca - Italy)
Town of Cortona - Department of Culture, the Museum of Palazzo Casali – Cortona (Arezzo - Italy)
City of Milan - Department of Culture, the Museum of Palazzo Reale - Milan (Italy)
Musée Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Musée Magritte - Bruxelles (Belgium)
Sculptuur Foundation Den Haag, Ministry of Culture - Den Haag (Netherlands)
Centre des Monuments Nationaux, Ministère Culture Communication, Saint Cloud State Museum – Paris (France)
Italian Cultural Institute - Amsterdam, Netherlands
Luxembourg, (Grand Duchy of Luxembourg)
