A press conference in Indianapolis
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Are you looking for the back-story or in search of our latest ”press release”? Do you want to view articles by AWA authors or share in the international media’s interest in art by women in Florence? AWA partners with various newspapers and magazines in Florence and abroad and has appeared in the media world-wide.
Conservator Elizabeth Wicks to discuss new discoveries surrounding a little-known Florentine artist who deserves her share of the limelight: Violante Ferroni’s in-process restoration is the topic of AWA’s November: ‘Restoration Conversations’, organized in conjunction with The Florentine.
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Advancing Women Artists announces its closure in June 2021. This ‘reflective’ piece in The Florentine, reflects on the organization’s achievements within a larger context. It goes back to the organization’s beginnings and looks toward our final 6 months.
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“A woman’s name raises doubts, until her work is seen,” Artemisia Gentileschi wrote in a 1649 letter. On October 16, 2020, AWA and The Florentine will be hosting the first-ever interview of the series ‘Restoration Conversations: ‘Artemisia’, with Letizia Treves, the Sassoon Curator of Later Italian Paintings at The National Gallery in London.
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A selection of shots from The Florentine, to spotlight a millimetric process. Florence-based conservators and photographers capture the Violante Ferroni conservation process. If a picture is worth a thousand words, have a look at the snaps that will save us rivers of verbiage.
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“San Frediano is the neighbourhood of the joking people, the artisans, strong and pure. Rough and just blossomed, good-hearted and a bit rotten…,” says Alessandro Sardelli, Florentine actor and playwright. In an autumn show at Il Palmerino, Victoria Slicther’s portraits captures the spirit of the district’s people. Read more...
"Garzoni’s style and subject matter were highly desirable to her 17th-century audience, when science and still life painting were both becoming popular," writes Daily Art journalist Alexandra Kiely." Today, Garzoni is the inspiration for an international challenge where contemporary artists will create new works based on Garzoni’s still life paintings." Read more...
"In Italy, girls were excluded from school, depriving them of the mathematical skills essential to the new art,' writes Financial Times journalist Rachel Spence in her interesting article. 'Not having the status of citizen, they could not issue an invoice or join a guild needed to practise a trade; they were forbidden to attend art academies. Yet women did break through”. Read more...
What happens when Florence’s next-generation Mud Angels reach out to AWA’s Art Angels? In her article, ‘The Art of Healing’, Ann Golob zeros in on the movements that have ‘shaken’ Florence ways that are both tragic and uplifting. The main protagonists? Eighteenth-century artist Violante Ferroni and Florida State University Students in Florence, who are on her historic trail. Read more...
Uffizi director Eike Schmidt describes the show ‘Female Perspectives’, another successful AWA collaborative at the Pitti for Women’s Day: “The works exhibited recount the reality surrounding the ‘female question’ in an era when professional commitment, political interests, intellectual life and independence was still a privilege, the result of a battle.” MORE.
The Telegraph’s Nick Squires takes us through the restoration atelier and to an off-the-beaten-track Florence museum to see Nelli’s newest ‘developments’. Geoff Pugh’s stunning photographs capture the essence of the art and the progress restorer Rossella Lari has made, by ‘reclaiming history centimeter by centimeter’. MORE.
A space of their own is a bridge across centuries. Holdings by women artists from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries are being researched and compiled throughout Europe and North America, thanks to a collaborative project with AWA and Indiana University’s Eskenazi Museum. A program directed by Professor Heidi Gealt, it is also a bridge between the US and Italy. Karen Chernick’s article in Hyperallergic explains.
Like many visitors, Jane Fortune was dazzled by Florence when she arrived in the Italian city in 1962. What made the Indianapolis native unusual was that she eventually left her own mark there as a champion of neglected art,” writes journalist James R. Hagerty in his article on AWA founder’s in an October 2018 edition of The Wall Street Journal.
The Florentine tributes AWA founder Jane Fortune (1942-2018) and her 13 years as Cultural Editor, with an article by AWA Director and long-time columnist Linda Falcone. Reflections on Jane by Editor-in-Chief Marco Badiani. A Florence-based piece celebrating the heart of Indiana Jane.
The New York Times journalist Katharine Seelye captures Jane Fortunes life on both sides of the ocean, focusing on her achievements on both sides of the ocean. Author and patron of the arts, Jane began her quest later to reclaim the works of female artists later in life and became a role model for women today—of all ages.
Journalist Kate Brown says it all in her article for Artnet: How a Female-Led Art Restoration Movement in Florence Is Reshaping the Canon. "Advancing Women Artists is at the fore of finding forgotten female Masters like Plautilla Nelli," says Brown, pointing out that sometimes all it takes is for someone to ask the right question. That's what our founder Jane Fortune did years ago when she began wondering: "Where are the women?"
AWA goes to Siberia… in print. The February 2018 issue of in-flight magazine S-7 for Siberia Airlines includes a snippet on AWA's Florentine efforts, Art truly knows no boundaries! If AWA can reach Siberia, there is no stopping our quest to recover art by women in Florence and the world. Now if we could only knew the Cyrillic alphabet...
S7 Magazine
S7 Magazine
USA Today picked up Anna Bensted's feature broadcast thanks to what she calls the 'radio ripple effect'. You'll find the story here... art lovers with a passion for art by women, will want to share the story even more.USA TODAY
There's nothing like seeing restoration front and center in Britain's top daily, The Guardian. "New Renaissance: How Florence is freeing its great female artists" is a must-read article by Joanna Moorhead, the article's author is a British journalist and novelist whose latest book is particularly close to our hearts: The Surreal Life of Leonora Carrington.THE GUARDIAN
'In Florence, they're bringing the works of women artists out of the basement' says reporter Anna Bensted in her recent radio feature on PRI's 'The World'. Her five-minute broadcast featuring 'the Florence perspective' includes interviews with AWA Director Linda Falcone and Uffizi Director Eike Schmidt. PRI (Public Radio International)
The August 2017 issue of the magazine 'Fine Art Connoisseur' hosts Leslie Elman's article 'Divine Revelation at the Uffizi'. Indeed, it is a 'revelation'! Here's a quote from the article: "The world's first art historian, Giorgio Vasari, who included Suor Plautilla among a handful of women artists in his 1568 edition of Lives of the Artists, suggests that her depiction of men lacks verisimilitude because she had little opportunity to draw or paint them in life. One might argue that hardly matters. The female mourners, with their red-rimmed eyes and tearstained faces, are what make Nelli’s Lamentation with Saints compelling."FINE ART CONNOISSEUR
Download the article (pdf)
Vanity Fair is lending a hand in spreading the news about art by women—and the need to recognize and rescue it. Aquaflor's newest perfume, made exclusively for AWA, is a sensorial experience of musk, osmanthus and rose, with hints of varnish and tobacco. It's a tribute for women artists in history and a new way to support our projects. VANITY FAIR
Thoughts on Lassnig, Pietro Leopoldo and portraiture. Austrian painter Maria Lassnig’s 70-year career, whose second half was amply represented in the 25-piece Florence show at the Pitti Palace left AWA Founder Jane Fortune thinking about Medici men, particularly Cosimo I and the Cardinal Pietro Leopoldo. Why?THE FLORENTINE
Plautilla Nelli masterpiece to be restored. Alexandra Korey spotlights the struggle of women artists to be heard and celebrates how it resonated with the many people who chose to get involved in #TheFirstLast. 409 people from 19 countries gave $67,810 before the official campaign closure on April 16, 2017, and more contributions are continuing to come in (any additional funds will go towards producing a book and documentary about the research and restoration of this painting).THE FLORENTINE
A newly gifted portrait of Anna Maria Luisa de’ Medici
Palazzo Vecchio entrusts newly gifted portrait of last Medici Grand Duchess to AWA founder for restoration. AWA's founder Jane Fortune will soon be restoring a portrait of the last Medici heir Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici that was gifted to Palazzo Vecchio by a distant branch of the Medici family. The portrait was commissioned two years after the Electress Palatine's death. AML was Florence's most important benefactor, as she made it 'unlawful to alienate any Medici property from Tuscany, to the benefit of its people... and to attract the curiosity of foreigners.' THE FLORENTINE
Early women artists are often depicted as rebellious souls who “wreak havoc“ by overturning social expectations. Stories of women artists and their “indiscretions“ undoubtedly give us a thrill, but let’s look at the “small“ but fascinating transgressions that characterize their art—not their lives.
THE FLORENTINE
Each year, starting 2017, Uffizi Gallery director Eike Schmidt is planning what the Italian press is calling “pink exhibitions“, designed to bring women artists to the forefront. Plautilla Nelli’s show at the Uffizi this March has left us all reflecting on the “top five” things Florence’s first woman artist has taught us.
THE FLORENTINE
When Jane Fortune first met glass designer Ita Barbini several years ago at her Venetian studio, she was fascinated to learn more about the mysterious art of glass making. An exhibition at the CAD Museum engenders conversation between the art of two women. For full interview with Ita Barbini:
THE FLORENTINE
What will happen to the self-portraits of female artists? Will they continue to have visibility in the Uffizi’s hallowed halls? Will visitors still have the chance to meditate on the collective power of art history’s greatest women protagonists?
THE FLORENTINE
One of the founders of feminist art theory and author of the groundbreaking book Artemisia Gentileschi: “The Image of the Female Hero in Italian Baroque Art“, Mary Garrard is a pillar of knowledge for all those working toward the advancement of women in the arts. For the full interview:
THE FLORENTINE
The words, “passion“, “drama“, “torture“ and “art“, describe the life of Artemisia Gentileschi(1593-1652/3), one of the world's greatest Baroque artists; a life that has all the chiaroscuro trappings of a romance novel. Even her exotic name, “Artemisia“, captures one’s attention. For full article:
TIMELESS TRAVEL (pdf)
‘The earth gives food for the body. It also gives clay to the artist, so she can make food for the soul,‘ says Tuscan artist Amalia Ciardi Dupre who’s new exhibition venue and cultural center on Florence’s via degli Artisti, showcases her life’s work—now on permanent public view. The museum doubles as the artist’s studio. Read full article about Amalia:
THE FLORENTINE
‘Art Exceptions‘ in Italy. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the majority of women artists around the world practiced art solely as an amateur pastime. It was unusual for them to receive payment for their works—as women artists were often gifted jewels or trinkets in exchange for rare private commissions.
ITALY MAGAZINE
Unlike most Last Suppers created in her era, it is an oil-on-canvas work, rather than a fresco, since fresco painting was considered a ‘man’s job‘. Another rarity: though it was uncommon for women during that time to sign their works, Nelli includes her very visible signature.
TIMELESS TRAVELS (pdf)
In October 1943, Paola Levi-Montalcini and her twin sister, Rita, boarded a train in Turin without knowing exactly where they would get off. Decades later, her sister would be a Nobel Prize-winning scientist while Paola Levi-Montalcini would be one of twentieth-century Italy?s most significant abstract painters and one of the many artists who contributed works after the flood of 1966 devastated Florence.
THE FLORENTINE
“To be born a woman whose destiny is to become a sculptor is a condemnation,“ artist Stefania Guidi told us during our visit to her home-studio in the hills near Tivoli. “Nonetheless, I marched into one of via Margutta’s studios with my first self-portrait bust under my arm and declared, ‘Io sono scultore – I am a sculptor [in the masculine form]’. For more on Guidi and other ‘flood ladies:
TIMELESS TRAVELS (pdf)
There is a side of art history that is in the shadows. There are thousands of sculptures and paintings by women that we know nothing about. Yet, these women were the contemporaries of Leonardo, Masaccio and Caravaggio. They worked for the courts and convents of their era, founding schools and workshops.
CORRIERE DELLA SERA
For decades the Uffizi Gallery’s Collection has hosted the most concentrated collection of art by women in Italy in the Vasari Corridor—with over twenty works by female artists on the walls. In fact, when it comes to representing women, the vast majority of larger museums worldwide cannot match this seemingly small sampling of paintings spanning the 16th to the 21st centuries.
TIMELESS TRAVELS (pdf)
“I feel very humbled to play a small part in giving each artist a voice. In many cases, their voices have never been heard before.“ Timeless Travels Editor-in-chief talks to Jane Fortune about her quest to rescue historic women artists in Florence from oblivion.
TIMELESS TRAVELS (pdf)
By giving a voice to historic
women artists AWA rescues
and reclaims the ‘hidden half’
of Florence’s art.
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