Giusy Petruzzelli (Bari, 1961), professor of History of modern and contemporary art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bari, graduated both in Literature and Philosophy and holds a PhD (University of Bari), a Diploma in Museum Teaching (University of Roma Tre), a D.E.A. in Literature (University of Geneva). With scholarships she attended the courses of: Cini Foundation in Venice, Banfi Institute in Reggio Emilia, Palladio International Centre of Architecture Studies in Vicenza, Italian Institute for Philosophical Studies in Naples, Research Institute on Canova and the Neoclassicism of Bassano del Grappa.
She is a member of the Italian Society of Aesthetics.
She has devoted various studies to iconology and the relationship between modern and contemporary art and in the autobiographical writings of artists. She participates in conferences in Italy and abroad and has published numerous essays. She is also an art critic and curator of exhibitions.
Main publications in: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7022-0223

Abstract
From her native Newark, New Jersey, Adele Plotkin (Newark 1931-Bari 2013), thanks to Fullbright grants from the US Government, was able to stay in Italy from 1957, first in Venice where she met Vedova and Tancredi, then in Ischia and Rome. She then moved to Bari where, from 1971, she held the position of professor of Theory of Perception and Psychology of Form at the Academy of Fine Arts and continued her artistic career.
In the United States, she had been a student of Josep Albers at Yale University and that study marked her poetics in an abstract sense, although in her Roman years she developed a path closer to that of Arshile Gorky. During the period in which she lived in Rome, between the end of the 1950s and 1970, she participated in group exhibitions (Schneider Gallery in 1958 and 1959, Trastevere Gallery in 1960) and held a solo show (Schneider Gallery in 1970 curated by Cesare Vivaldi).
This paper intends to shed light on this Roman phase of Adele Plotkin’s life, a phase whose paintings are well known, published in two texts – Adele Plotkin, Immagini ed echi, Dedalo 2008 and Clemente Francavilla, Un sottile margine blu, Dedalo 2013 – but little is known about the cultural debate underlying the artist’s relationships with artists, gallery owners and critics.

Image: Adele Plotkin, Finestra, 1974, acrilico su tela, cm 130×105, Bari, collezione privata, foto R. Sibilano, courtesy del collezionista e del fotografo.