After his initial activity as a painter, in the 1940s and 1950s, he became one of the major collectors of contemporary Italian abstract art, developing a deep relationship of patronage and friendship with the artists.

[9] In June 1947 Cavellini met them in Paris with his wife, and there he visited the main museums of the city (the Louvre, the Petit Palais, the Jeu de Paume), the art galleries and the studios of artists Gino Severini, Óscar Domínguez, Édouard Pignon and Henry Adam.

[9][11] Because of his sudden popularity, Cavellini's father and brother, who was president of the chamber of commerce of the province of Brescia, asked him to avoid contact with artists because they were afraid they might be communists.

[16] In February 1953 Cavellini travels to Milan to meet Atanasio Soldati, the father of Italian abstract art, shortly before his death, and he acquired two of his paintings.

[17][18] The magazine XX Siecle, edited by Gualtieri di San Lazzaro, published a long article about Cavellini written by professor Argan.

[20] In 1955 Cavellini's gallery was visited by German art historian Werner Haftmann and by the founder of documenta Arnold Bode, who asked him to contribute to the exhibition.

[20] In the same year Cavellini's gallery was visited by art historians Vittorio Viale and Palma Bucarelli, and then by poets Eugenio Montale, Salvatore Quasimodo, Giuseppe Ungaretti, Beniamino Joppolo and French painter Maurice Estève.

[10][23] The exhibition received positive reviews from, among others, art critics Lionello Venturi, Giulio Carlo Argan, Giuseppe Marchiori and Guido Ballo, and also by Francesco Arcangeli, Attilio Bertolucci, Enrico Crispolti, Maurizio Calvesi and Alfredo Mezio.

[28] Abstract Art was positively reviewed by Elda Fezzi, Guido Ballo, Giorgio Kaisserlian, Duilio Morosini, Angelo Dragone and Rosanna Apicella.

[36] In 1965 with the advent of arte povera Cavellini met Michelangelo Pistoletto and Giulio Paolini, and acquired works by Mario Merz, Giovanni Anselmo and Gilberto Zorio, and then Luciano Fabro, Piero Gilardi and Jannis Kounellis.

[43] They were followed by the French Bernar Venet and Ben Vautier, by the visual poets Emilio Villa, Ugo Carrega and Ketty La Rocca, and then by Claudio Parmiggiani, Aldo Spinelli, Michele Zaza, Fernando De Filippi, Adriano Altamira, Carlo Pittore and E.F. Higgins III.

[36] In 1967 his daughter Mariella was married, and for the occasion, Cavellini made an exhibition with works of Piero Gilardi, Arman, Allen Jones, Robert Rauschenberg, David Hockney, Alan Davie, Alberto Burri and Lucio Fontana.

[48] In this period Cavellini also created the first Francobolli (Stamps) that showed his portraits: first that by Mario Ceroli, then those by Mimmo Rotella, James Collins and Andy Warhol.

[57] The interview was made on 22 May 1975 and it was shown at the international videotape congress organized by the CAYC of Buenos Aires at Palazzo dei Diamanti in Ferrara by Argentine architect Jorge Glusberg.

[57] He became interested in conceptual art (Allan Kaprow, Daniel Buren, Dennis Oppenheim, Joseph Kosuth, Dan Graham, Peter Hutchinson, Bill Beckley, Jean Le Gac), and in Milan he bought La déconstruction de l'art by Ben Vautier, a work composed of 167 different paintings.

[67] Art magazines like Egozine, Onderlangs, Vile and Hid published articles about Cavellini, and the book Identität, Realität, Fiktion = Identité, réalité, fiction by Marie-Luise Schumacher, included pictures of the Venice Doge's Palace photomontage made by the artist, his Posters, his meeting with Andy Warhol and also his Last Supper.

[68] However, Cavellini enjoyed no success in Italy, for instance the critic Achille Bonito Oliva, who visited him with Giuseppe Recchia, did not show any interest in his art, and Filiberto Menna and Alberto Boatto judged him negatively.

[71] In February 1977 Franco Farina, director of Palazzo dei Diamanti in Ferrara, invited Cavellini to the inauguration of a space dedicated to the production of videotapes, performances and theatre.

[74][75] He received requests for stickers from many foreign artists, including the Americans Buster Cleveland and Anna Banana, who put a photograph on him on her magazine Vile.

[77] In 1977 Italian journalist Romano Battaglia dedicated a chapter of his book Vivono fra noi (They Live Among Us), in which he presented a series of unusual people, to Cavellini.

14, edited by critics Renato Barilli, Carlo Bertelli, Maurizio Calvesi, Mario De Micheli, Giuseppe Marchiori and Nello Ponente, coordinated by Paolo Levi, made no mention of Cavellini.

[76][83] In 1977 Italian journalist Toti Carpentieri wrote about Cavellini in a newspaper published in Lecce, then interviewed him for the national television network RAI, asking him for a forecast on the following year's developments in art.

[89] Jolena Baldini wrote about Cavellini's artworks and performances on Paese Sera, noting the contrast between the artist's irony and the drama of the present times (anni di piombo, kidnapping of Aldo Moro).

[90] Cavellini mailed his book Incontri/scontri nella giungla nell'arte to numerous artists and art critics, receiving positive feedback exclusively from outside of Italy.

[95] They put Cavellini's posters on the pavement, set fire on them and covered them with salt, then they collected the ashes and lit candles in the Nuovi Strumenti Gallery, as an "artisti funeral".

[95] He also wrote a Lettera of thanks to my enemies[96][97] Then he made a new postcard with a photomontage showing Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong, Karl Marx, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Francisco Franco and other historical figures, and a plea to avoid a nuclear war that could destroy his important artworks.

[96] Enrico Crispolti and Franco Summa set up in Pescara an exhibition titled Postal Medium containing works by Cavellini, Basilio Cascella and other mail artists.

[126] In the summer of 1984 Belgian artist Guy Bleus, director of the Administration Center in Wellen, organized a festival in his honor in Brussels, close to the European Elections.

[128] The Modern Realism gallery in Dallas organized an exhibition of his works, and in Italy Enzo Rossi Roiss made one at the Centro Nucleo Arte in Bologna.

[132] Cavellini's last trip was to Japan: on 3 December 1985 artist Shozo Shimamoto visited him in Brescia and told him that he would organize exhibitions in Kyoto in July 1986, in Osaka in October, and then in Tokyo in January 1987.