Michele di Robilant

“My parents realized that if one is to truly cultivate a passion for something, one needs to arrive at that on their own.”

The son of the art dealer Edmondo di Robilant spent years forging his own path through the art world. Now, at 30, he’s helping steer the newly independent Robilant gallery into a new era

By Jeanne Malle

When the art dealer Edmondo di Robilant co-founded Robilant + Voena in 2004, his son, Michele, was eight years old. Family businesses, Michele would one day learn, should be treated like old-master paintings: preserved carefully, handled delicately, and rarely altered. Twenty-two years later, as director of the newly independent Robilant gallery, he understands those nuances firsthand.

Born in London to the Canadian journalist Maya Even, Michele moved to Venice in 2004 with his mother to learn his father’s language—the same year Edmondo opened the gallery’s first outpost, on Dover Street. “It was quite a shock because it happened from READ ON