What may have slipped under the radar is a splendid four part lecture series, Arte Povera: Art of Collaboration, from Magazzino Italian Art Museum just up the Hudson River from NYC which continues to provide fascinating behind-the-scenes scholarship about known and lesser known Italian artists, writers and thinkers.

The first quiet effort by Lucia Re, a professor at UCLA who made me want to go back to school, focused on creative couples (mostly Italian) who fed off each others work (not just Arte Povera) I did not know of some of these enduring partnerships, many of which did not follow the mold of mentor and muse, but where the two lovers seem equally obsessed and reverent.

Included were Eleanor Duse and Gabriele D'Annunzio, Marta Abba and Luigi Pirandello, Benedetta and Marinetti, Antonietta Raphael and Mario Mafai, Lucia and William Demby, among others. Re makes sure to note that some of these women have been more obscured.

Pictured are Futurists Benedetta and Marinetti. More on them and on the Magazzino series in coming days.