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Restoration at Florence’s Twentieth-century Museum
Made ‘new’ under the awnings
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AWA’s plein-air restoration gives visibility to Raphael Mafai’s art. Florence's Twentieth-century Museum decided to make the in-progress restoration of Raphael Mafai's sculpture Mrs. della Ragione accessible to the art-loving public. For several months prior its permanent exhibition in June 2017, conservator Merj Nesi worked in the museum's outdoor loggia, where visitors could watch the process and ask questions. She only went indoor for the 'final touches' (pictured here). “As founder and chair of Advancing Women Artists, the project's sponsor, I feel that giving Raphael Mafai 'extra' visibility is a way to shine a light on the difficulties she experienced, both as a Jewish artist and as a female sculptor, facing a medium that only a handful of historic women have tackled,” says AWA’s founder Jane Fortune. Raphael Mafai became a sculptor in the 1930s when painting became a source of competitive tension in her marriage to painter Mario Mafai.