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The rich heritage of the Gallery, actives since the early 60s with a busy exhibition aimed at specific themes and schools of art, is the Collection of Drawing from the "Collection of Contemporary Photography and Fund Franco Fontana", and the "Collection of Graphics Don Casimiro Bettelli", received recently on loan from the Modenese Curia. Since 1997, the collection is housed in the Palazzo Santa Margherita, where there are designated areas for temporary installations and monographic exhibitions, future museum rooms and laboratori. The Civic Gallery, active since 1959 and established in 1963 as a result of use, which lasted fifteen years as "Hall of Culture" of Modena, was transferred in 1997 to its present location, Palazzo Santa Margherita. The historic building, recently restored, was designed in 1830 by neoclassical architect Francesco Vandelli. No trace remains, however, the church and the convent attached to the complex, used as headquarters of the Patronage of the Sons of the People, since 1874. Within the palace are the Public Library Antonio Dolphini, since 1992 the Museum of the figurine and soon the "Music Institute Orazio Vecchi". The spaces of the Civic Gallery includes the "Great Hall"; the center of exhibitions, the rooms upstairs, opened in November 2004, a well-equipped teaching laboratory run in collaboration with the Department of Education of the City, and a bookshop. The Civic Gallery, thanks to the directions of Oscar Goldoni, Carlo Federico Teodoro, Pier Giovanni Castagnoli, Flaminio Gualdoni, Walter Guadagnini and Angela Vettese, has experienced constant growth in the field of graphic arts and contemporary photography collections represented by conspicuous: five thousand, in fact, make up the section dedicated to contemporary design, while about three thousand images are the copyright section of photography. Since the late eighties the collection of drawings and prints of the Civic Gallery has been configured as a unique corpus: consists of works on paper, grew exponentially through purchases, donations and monographic exhibitions that witnessed the evolution of the twentieth century through the technique of drawing. The two exhibitions Italian design between the wars (1983) and design and Italian post-war (1987) also contributed to public awareness towards the collecting specific proposed by the Civic Gallery. There are preserved specimens of the protagonists of the regional and national Visual Poetry. At the Civic Gallery are placed also on loan from the Modena Curia, more than six hundred graphic works and multiple copyright collected by the prelate Casimiro Bettelli, a lover of art and poetry, which has collected editions of Gino Severini, Giacomo Balla, George Braque, Arman, René Magritte, Zadkine, Andy Warhol, Jim Dine, Victor Vasarely, Sol Le Witt, Mario Schifano, Lucio Fontana and Alberto Burri. In 1991, Franco Fontana has given the city its own collection of photographs, including over five hundred prints: the collection is made up of images taken by the artist and Anton Giulio Bragaglia, Man Ray, Henry Cartier Bresson, Robert Capa, Sander, Luigi Ghirri Oliviero Toscani, Ferdinando Scianna, Fontcuberta, Hamilton, Robert Doisneau, Berengo, Gardin, Alberto Giacomelli, Richard Avedon and many others. The nucleus, plus other donations from photographers who have left their images to the gallery: to name a few, are cited the names of Beppe Zagaglia, Gabriele Basilico, Olivo Barbieri, Mimmo Iodice, Paolo Gioli, Daniel Schwartz, Antonio Biasucci, Philip Lorca Corcia, Aurelio Amendola. Exhibitions In the activity of promotion and enhancement of contemporary artistic culture promoted by the gallery, then include the exhibitions. From the mid-fifties the cultural activity of Modena was in fact very dynamic in this specific sector: in 1958 was set up the I° International Art Biennale Pictures (1958), which was followed by other events designed to testify the consistency of work Gallery in the areas of collecting, drawing and photography representative of contemporary local, national and international. Since 2008, the Gallery hosts and collaborates in the "International Festival of Electronic Music and Live Media", dedicated to the meeting of the visual arts with music, and the new technologies, now in its fourth edition in 2011. During restoration of the Ghirlandina, the tower of the city, recognized in 1997 UNESCO, was involved the artist Mimmo Paladino who devised a canvas decorated that has enveloped the tower in an installation of sixty-four 64 meters and connected to the exposure to Mimmo Paladino Modena ended at Palazzo Santa Margherita.