Mandarin Oriental Ritz, Madrid

550 Madison

The Lanesborough, London

25hours Paris Terminus Nord

Park Hyatt New York

The Tokyo EDITION, Toranomon

Corinthia Rome

The seeds of VISTO were planted in a New Jersey supermarket in early 1983. There, our founders, Alex Toledano and Seth Rosenbaum, met in the baby-food aisle as their mothers did their regular food shopping. Soon they became best friends. Almost thirty years later after moving to Europe, they founded VISTO.

Today VISTO is an international team of twenty art consultants working across studios in France, Cyprus and the US. Together this distinctive group delivers meaningful projects around the world, bringing cultural knowledge, creative insight and operational precision to every commission.

Alex and Seth in 1984, celebrating Alex's 2nd birthday

Alex (left) and Seth (right) in 1984, celebrating Alex's 2^nd birthday

Alex Toledano, Ph.D.

Co-founder and President of VISTO, Alex leads our Paris office. He received his Ph.D. in 2012 in Late Modern European History at the University of California, Berkeley, and is a specialist on the history of Paris since the French Revolution. His dissertation, Sharing Paris: The Use and Ownership of a Neighborhood, Its Streets, and Public Spaces, 1950-2012, studies the roles of visitors and residents in shaping community and daily life in Parisian neighborhoods with a focus on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis in the 10^th arrondissement.

He received a bachelor’s degree in Art and Archaeology summa cum laude from Princeton University in 2004. He won the departmental thesis prize for Illuminating the Canon: Institutions and the Development of the Canon of Abstract Expressionism, which studied how paintings by Abstract Expressionist artists — Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning and others — became the most valuable, important works of American art in the global art market.

Alex was the music supervisor for the D.A. Pennebaker film, Kings of Pastry, which documents the competition for the title of Meilleur Ouvrier de France for pastry chefs. He was the Music Director of WPRB, Princeton University’s radio station. He also regularly performs gypsy jazz guitar in the style of Django Reinhardt in Paris and has recorded a number of albums.

Alex has written a book on Paris photographs and has contributed to publications including The New York Times, New York Magazine and Lucky Peach.

Selected Publications

Paris in Photographs, 1890. Dover Press, 2015. [Amazon, Google Books]

The Uncommon Resilience of Paris Street Life, The New York Times Magazine, November 16, 2015.

The State of Fine Dining, Lucky Peach, Fall 2016

Seth Rosenbaum, Ph.D.

Co-founder and CEO of VISTO, Seth leads our office in Nicosia, Cyprus. He completed his Ph.D. in 2013 at Harvard University in the English Department. Seth’s doctoral thesis studies twentieth-century notions of taste and style, with a particular focus on American literature and food.

He received his bachelor's degree in English summa cum laude from Columbia University in 2004. He received the departmental thesis prize for his work on William Blake, one of England's greatest artists and poets at the turn of the 19^th century.

Seth recently edited Aglaia Kremezi’s book Mediterranean Vegetarian Feasts.

Seth has an interest in cognitive science and the arts, an emerging field that studies the way people experience art and preferences on a quantifiable neurological level. Since moving to Cyprus, Seth has taken up windsurfing and the study of Greek.

WE CREATE ART COLLECTIONS FOR THE WORLD’S MOST PRESTIGIOUS PLACES.

VISTO is a full-service international art consultancy creating bespoke collections for the world’s leading luxury hotels, restaurants, residences and landmark destinations.

Rome has been shaped by patronage for millennia. Emperors, popes and noble families commissioned artists not simply to decorate their surroundings, but to express the ideas of their time. Entrusted by Corinthia Hotels for its first Roman address, VISTO curated an art collection that continues this tradition of patronage for the Eternal City today. Corinthia Rome occupies a restored neoclassical palace on Piazza del Parlamento, formerly associated with the Bank of Italy, where art and architecture already formed part of the building's identity.

VISTO began with research into Rome, the building and its artistic history, developing a concept that would allow contemporary art to become central to the continuing story of Corinthia Rome, now branded 'Rome's Eternally Artful Enclave'. From concept development and curation to artist commissioning, procurement and installation, VISTO managed the complete art program.

More than 25 new works were commissioned specifically for the hotel, with contemporary artists responding to the curatorial concept through painting, textiles, drawings and other media. Instead of reconverating the imagery of the past, the collection invites a new generation of artists to interpret Rome's character and traditions in their own language.The result is a collection that positions Corinthia Rome as a contemporary patron: adding unique commissions to the cultural inheritance of the Eternal City.

Client: Corinthia Hotels | Property: Corinthia Rome | Location: Rome, Italy | Sector: Luxury hospitality | Services: Art Strategy & Narrative Development, Curation & Sourcing, Commissioning, Procurement & Budget Management, Production, Framing & Fabrication, Logistics & Installation, Styling & Accessories, Collection Documentation | Completed: 2026

Corinthia Rome

Commissioned specifically for the lobby, Italian artist Elisa Grezzani’s monumental textile reinterprets the language of tapestry through a contemporary lens.

Its mirrored forms, saturated color and ornamental border recall the textiles of Rome’s palazzi and ecclesiastical interiors, where such works communicated status and cultural authority. Here, that tradition is transformed into a new work created expressly for the hotel.

The collection extends into the hotel’s guestrooms and suites, transforming private spaces into intimate galleries. Commissioned paintings respond to Rome’s gardens, architecture, classical forms, mythology and landscape.

The display of the collection celebrates how artworks come into being. Preparatory sketches are displayed in the corridors so that guests encounter different moments in the life of the artwork as they move through the building: from the first idea to the final expression.

Patronage is not simply about acquiring art. It is about making it possible.

Elena Ceretti’s composition brings classical fragments, architectural space, and contemporary abstraction into a carefully balanced scene that reflects the enduring dialogue between Rome’s past and present.

Across this project, VISTO’s art collection for Corinthia Rome brings the city’s creative legacy into the present. Though research, curation and new commissions, VISTO continued the traditions of patronage in which each generation adds something of its own.

Alex Toledano, Ph.D.

Selected Publications

Seth Rosenbaum, Ph.D.

Our studios

Sign up to our newsletter

Services

Press

Corinthia Rome