Peter Marino Shares His Affinity for Carla Accardi’s Bold Artwork
At his five-year-old art foundation in Southampton, the designer displays a colorful assortment of the artist’s works, which are included in his expansive personal collection
I am excited about the fifth year of the Peter Marino Art Foundation because every day I put more heart and soul into it. You know how they say, “Don’t bite off more than you can chew”? Well, it’s a lot more work than I ever imagined. I decide where to hang everything myself. My wife, Jane, had the idea for the foundation. She told me, “You have warehouses full of art and haven’t seen these works in years. You should get some of those pieces out.”
My whole life, I’ve been collecting art. I look for an artist where I think the prices are right for entry and then collect in depth. I was buying women artists long before everybody else did. Carla Accardi and Betty Parsons are two I particularly love and have paired them in a new show. They were confirmed abstract painters during the beginning of the movement, and that took a lot of boldness. It’s remarkable because when you look at them, there’s a similar ethos, though one was in Italy and the other in America—both living with the zeitgeist.
Accardi was really avant-garde. She did works on plastic and garbagy stuff in the ’60s that influenced Arte Povera. I love her commitment to abstraction. I like her color sense a lot. She was a very interesting lady and a huge feminist. When you compare these two leading female artists from the same period, it’s just electric.
A version of this article first appeared in print in our 2026 Summer Issue under the headline “In Focus.” Subscribe to the magazine.