Dante's 20th Anniversary

Galleria Dante: 1988 - 2008

We find it hard to believe that it has been 20 years. Our first endeavor was a small Italian trattoria called “Pizza Joe”. It was funded by securing a loan on the only possession left in Michigan: a seven year old DeLorean. In a few short weeks we were able to buy our pizza oven, build our work table, scrub the floors with a tooth brush, and watch over our three year old daughter sleeping in the corner.

We were lucky that the third day we opened we had line ups, which was surprising as we had not advertised. Much of the success was due to the recommendation of locals and tourists. But our biggest supporters back then were the Alaska Airlines employees, who also celebrated 20 years of flying to Vallarta this past November. The flight attendants and pilots found us our first day in business and over the next 2 years even announced over the in-flight intercom that their favorite restaurant in PV was “Pizza Joe”.

So you may ask how we got into the gallery business. We decorated our little restaurant with art that we had collected from Italy and Greece. It was because of the interest in our art collection that we felt we could successfully open an art gallery.

We started with the sale of classical European and pre-Columbian reproductions, as well as a few local sculptors. After being a sculpture gallery for many years, we slowly started to add painters. We have been fortunate to work with many talented artists, so the gallery continues to expand, and paintings and sculptures now equally divide the space.

Galleria Dante, now in its 14th season, is recognized as Vallarta’s largest fine art gallery and sculpture garden. We are grateful to our friends, clients and artists who helped us to make the gallery what it is today.

Muchisimas felicidades a Claire y Joe Guarniere por todo este esfuerzo de promoción, difusión y venta de arte!

Isabel La Católica

Para terminar este año, tuve el fin de semana pasado mi participación en el proyecto Fast-Art de la Galería de Isabel la Católica. Se hizo una exposición virtual de la colección Cíclopes, dirigida principalmente al público de la calle. Este proyecto hace presentaciones de diferentes artistas por medio de videos de un par de minutos, con lo cual se busca que el espectador, que tiene poco tiempo de visitar galerías y museos, pueda conocer obras de arte de una manera dinámica y divertida.