Weaving Connections between Rome and New York: the Role of Gabriella Drudi

Gabriella Drudi (1922–1998) was an Italian literary agent, translator, and art critic whose story has often been overlooked. This chapter explores Drudi’s multidisciplinary modus operandi and the role she played in building connections between Rome and New York. I contend that during the 1950s, it was quite a challenge to propose to Italian readers American authors, such as John Steinbeck and Truman Capote, Graham Greene, and William Burroughs, or to write about artists such as Robert Motherwell and Mark Rothko. At that time, Italian art critics were mostly Francophiles and were less oriented toward the American art scene. Today, Drudi’s works and writings can provide an original perspective on the rise of American Abstract painters such as Willem de Kooning and Motherwell and of one of their main supporters, the art critic Harold Rosenberg whose book, The Anxious Object, she translated in 1967.