His father, Ernesto, was a wine distributor who invested in real estate and in 1940 was given the title of count by King Vittorio Emanuele III.
[3] Along with his wife Rosa Giovanna, Panza began building an art collection in 1956, when he bought a work by Antoni Tàpies.
They were also among the first patrons of Pop art, purchasing 11 of Robert Rauschenberg’s “combines” of the mid-1950s, as well as works by Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, and James Rosenquist.
In 1984, Panza sold 80 abstract Expressionist and pop works to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles,[7] whose founding director Pontus Hultén he had known since 1963[8] and at which he served as a trustee.
The building has 50,000 square feet (4,600 m2) of exhibition space and site-specific works by artists including James Turrell, Robert Irwin and Dan Flavin.
[18] Other artists shown in Varese include Ruth Ann Fredenthal, Allan Graham, Ford Beckman, and David Simpson.
[21] At the Venice Biennale in 2011, artist Barry X Ball installed nine marble sculptures depicting Panza's head in different scales and surfaces at Ca' Rezzonico.