The Ettore Molinario Collection is an autobiographical journey into photography’s power to illuminate the human experience. Since the early 1990s, Ettore Molinario has built a collection that spans from the origins of photography to contemporary visual languages, giving equal authority to renowned masters, lesser-known artists and anonymous photographers.
Rooted in a personal journey of introspection, also lived physically through the practice of cave diving, the Collection explores themes of identity and its tensions: the interplay between masculine and feminine, the balance between eros and thanatos, the pursuit for beauty, and the melancholy that comes with emotional conflicts, leading to the desire for balance expressed through the art of cross-dressing.
The images become rays of light into the inner self, transforming intimate experiences into opportunities for dialogue, discovery, and reconciliation. The Dialogue itself is the defining essence of the Collection, weaving together the history of photography with a contemporary perspective, inviting encounters with others and creating new narratives and unexpected connections.
This vision is fully expressed in the Casa Museo Molinario Colombari, founded in 2024 in Milan by Ettore Molinario and Rossella Colombari. Conceived as a place for exchange and shared participation, La Casa becomes the living theatre for the Collection, opening outward to embrace an evolving cultural dialogue.
MISSION
The Ettore Molinario Collection is a space for exploration and personal investigation, where photography becomes a tool for immersion and confrontation with the complexity of human identity. It is a living curatorial voice that fosters cultural exchange, artistic research, and reflection on the power of images. Through the collector’s shared narrative, the works become an opportunity for discovery and dialogue: an invitation to look inside and beyond oneself.
VISION
The Ettore Molinario Collection positions itself as an international presence on the photography scene, an horizon of encounter where images trace paths of identity discovery and collective dialogue. A representative space where memory and future merge, and where individual experience generates new influences, transforming the Collection into a living, constantly evolving system.
BIOGRAPHY
Ettore Molinario is an economist, collector and art historian.
After a twenty-year career as top manager in multinational companies in the financial and insurance sector, he decided to embark on a new personal and professional journey in the art world. He devoted several years to study and research, obtaining a second degree in Art History.
This was followed by a grand tour of the world's leading museums from 2010 to 2014. He is the author of essays on collecting and has participated as a speaker at conferences dedicated to the close link between photography and psychoanalysis. He has also collaborated with several universities as a visiting professor, teaching courses and workshops dedicated to photography and the art market. An expert in the dynamics that characterize today's art market, Ettore Molinario is a consultant for private banks on economic issues in the art sector and is one of Italy's most influential photography collectors.
In 2024, with his wife Rossella Colombari, he founded the Casa Museo Molinario Colombari, a non-profit cultural association in Milan which hosts - and partially showcases - their collection. A dynamic and immersive environment that welcomes cultural exchange through guided visits, talks, events, experimental and innovative projects – nurturing dialogue, creativity, and discovery.
PUBLICATION
Il linguaggio delle immagini
Citation: E. Molinario, Il linguaggio delle immagini. Fotografia in Italia tra gli anni '80 e '90, in M. Manni (a cura di), Metronom, Modena 2023, pp. 86-91.
Living the Images
Citation: E. Molinario, Living the Images, 2019.
Enigma of the Collector
Citation: E. Molinario, “L'enigma del collezionista”, in M. Mazzocut-Mis, C. Spenuso (a cura di), Fermo immagine. Arte, vita e mercato della fotografia, Mimesis, Milano 2017, pp. 137-164.
Rooted in a personal journey of introspection, also lived physically through the practice of cave diving, the Collection explores themes of identity and its tensions: the interplay between masculine and feminine, the balance between eros and thanatos, the pursuit for beauty, and the melancholy that comes with emotional conflicts, leading to the desire for balance expressed through the art of cross-dressing.
The images become rays of light into the inner self, transforming intimate experiences into opportunities for dialogue, discovery, and reconciliation. The Dialogue itself is the defining essence of the Collection, weaving together the history of photography with a contemporary perspective, inviting encounters with others and creating new narratives and unexpected connections.
This vision is fully expressed in the Casa Museo Molinario Colombari, founded in 2024 in Milan by Ettore Molinario and Rossella Colombari. Conceived as a place for exchange and shared participation, La Casa becomes the living theatre for the Collection, opening outward to embrace an evolving cultural dialogue.
MISSION
The Ettore Molinario Collection is a space for exploration and personal investigation, where photography becomes a tool for immersion and confrontation with the complexity of human identity. It is a living curatorial voice that fosters cultural exchange, artistic research, and reflection on the power of images. Through the collector’s shared narrative, the works become an opportunity for discovery and dialogue: an invitation to look inside and beyond oneself.
VISION
The Ettore Molinario Collection positions itself as an international presence on the photography scene, an horizon of encounter where images trace paths of identity discovery and collective dialogue. A representative space where memory and future merge, and where individual experience generates new influences, transforming the Collection into a living, constantly evolving system.
BIOGRAPHY
Ettore Molinario is an economist, collector and art historian.
After a twenty-year career as top manager in multinational companies in the financial and insurance sector, he decided to embark on a new personal and professional journey in the art world. He devoted several years to study and research, obtaining a second degree in Art History.
This was followed by a grand tour of the world's leading museums from 2010 to 2014. He is the author of essays on collecting and has participated as a speaker at conferences dedicated to the close link between photography and psychoanalysis. He has also collaborated with several universities as a visiting professor, teaching courses and workshops dedicated to photography and the art market. An expert in the dynamics that characterize today's art market, Ettore Molinario is a consultant for private banks on economic issues in the art sector and is one of Italy's most influential photography collectors.
In 2024, with his wife Rossella Colombari, he founded the Casa Museo Molinario Colombari, a non-profit cultural association in Milan which hosts - and partially showcases - their collection. A dynamic and immersive environment that welcomes cultural exchange through guided visits, talks, events, experimental and innovative projects – nurturing dialogue, creativity, and discovery.
PUBLICATION
Il linguaggio delle immagini
Citation: E. Molinario, Il linguaggio delle immagini. Fotografia in Italia tra gli anni '80 e '90, in M. Manni (a cura di), Metronom, Modena 2023, pp. 86-91.
Living the Images
Citation: E. Molinario, Living the Images, 2019.
Enigma of the Collector
Citation: E. Molinario, “L'enigma del collezionista”, in M. Mazzocut-Mis, C. Spenuso (a cura di), Fermo immagine. Arte, vita e mercato della fotografia, Mimesis, Milano 2017, pp. 137-164.