FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Italian Cultural Institute of New York

Presents:

"Fondazione Zeri: a Voyage through Art History"

Thursday, March 22, 2012 - 6:00 PM

With the participation of: Anna Ottani Cavina , Director Fondazione Zeri Keith Christiansen , Chairman Department of European Paintings - Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Location Italian Cultural Institute New York, 686 Park Avenue NYC

New York City art lovers will be introduced to the Fondazione Zeri of Bologna through a power point presentation created especially for this event by the Fondazione Zeri and illustrated by Anna Ottani Cavina , Director of the Fondazione Zeri. A conversation exploring the iconic persona of Mr. Zeri and ties between the United States and the Fondazione will follow.

The Fondazione Zeri, named after the renowned Italian art historian Federico Zeri, is located at the and serves as a prestigious center of specialization in the field of humanistic studies.

Federico Zeri combined his talent as an art connoisseur with a close network of acquaintances which brought him into contact with the leading collectors and antiquarians of the time, including Vittorio Cini, J. Paul Getty, Alessandro Contini Bonacossi and Daniel Wildenstein. Of great significance were his relations with the United States. As a visiting professor at in Cambridge (Mass.) and New York's , he was instrumental in setting up the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. He was commissioned to catalogue the Italian paintings in US state-owned collections (1972), publishing the catalogs of the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore (1976) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (1971, 1973, 1980, 1986).

Zeri's time was spent between Europe, the States and the Middle East. When not travelling he would retreat to his villa in Mentana, designed especially for him by the architect Andrea Busiri Vici in 1963 to suit his requirements for living and studying. From his isolated location in the Roman countryside he had no hesitation in expressing outspoken views through the Press and television, eventually becoming the critical conscience of Italian culture, which was only later to bring him recognition. In 1993 he was appointed deputy chairman of the National Council for the Cultural Heritage. In February 1998 he was awarded an honorary degree from the University of Bologna, a year after becoming a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, where he took the place of Richard Nixon.

The collection

The photograph library

The photograph archive is one of the world's most complete private archives for the art history sector. Over the years whole photograph collections previously owned by scholars, auction houses and antique dealers were saved by Federico Zeri from dispersion or destruction.

The photograph archive numbers 290,000 photos of art works and monuments. For the most part they are black and white prints on paper (gelatin silver prints, albumen prints, carbon prints, collotypes), with a smaller section of colour prints and slides, coming from State photography archives (Fototeca Nazionale, Soprintendenze), Italian and foreign museums, private archives and collections. Besides its rich Italian painting collection (148,000 photographs), the archive contains sizable core collections covering the applied arts (18,000 photos), archaeology (3,600), architecture (8,800), italian sculpture (16,000), drawings (12,700), miniatures (5,500), besides icons and trompe l’oeil. Perhaps the richest and most valuable such core collection is the one on Italian and European still lifes (14,000 photos).

The library

Federico Zeri’s art library comprises more than 46,000 books as well as about 37,700 auction catalogues and 60 journals. It forms the natural scientific extension to the photograph library with which it is inseparably linked.

Over and above the value of every publication, the special feature is the volume arrangement. Novel relations will be found between artists and reading programmes, reflecting Zeri’s own studies and research. Another unique feature is the appearance in many books of hand-written annotations, dedications and attachments such as letters, photographs and articles bearing witness to the critical work of the scholar.

As of September 2007, the essential core of Federico Zeri’s art library has been transferred to the Bologna centre.

The richest section concerns Italian painting from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century and consists of monographs, catalogues and extracts. There are also important sections covering sculpture, miniatures, medieval art, drawing, engraving, foreign art, applied arts, classical art, Byzantine art, archaeology, architecture, iconography, museum catalogues and sources of art historiography. The section on the twentieth century includes the library of the scholar Franco Russoli (former Superintendent of the Brera) which Zeri purchased to avoid it being dispersed.

The collection of auction catalogues (not yet transferred to Bologna) is one of the most important in existence, and includes a number of rare Italian and foreign catalogues from the nineteenth and early twentieth century, as well as catalogues from recent years.

Epigraphs

During his tireless research activity, Federico Zeri collected a range of different items including mosaics, Fayum portraits and sculptures at his house in Mentana.

The bulk of his collection of antiquities is made up of several hundred inscriptions. Though these include some in Greek, the largest proportion consist of hundreds of inscriptions in Latin. Almost always purchased on the antiques market, the origin is only known with certainty in a few cases, though it may be assumed that most of them came to light in , Ostia and elsewhere in Lazio. The collection is distinctive not only for its wealth of contents but also for its unique range of different types, making it almost a "manual" of epigraphy. It contains a few rare examples of Republican inscriptions, for example, besides dedications to divinities, emperors, characters from the senatorial and equestrian ranks, and burial monuments of soldiers as well as artisans and ordinary people. There are also Christian inscriptions, stamped bricks and a few examples of epigraphs in the form of odes.

About the speakers

Anna Ottani Cavina

Anna Ottani Cavina teaches History of Modern Art at the University of Bologna and at Johns Hopkins University (Bologna Center). She published and organized expositions on the themes of Caravaggio paintings, the 17th century in and the Neoclassical and Romantic age (Carlo Saraceni, 1968; Elsheimer and Galileo, 1976; Felice Giani 1758-1823 e la cultura di fine secolo, Electa, 1999, 2 volumes; Il Settecento e l’antico, 1987; Romanticismo, il nuovo sentimento della natura, 1993). One of her volumes, I paesaggi della ragione, received the Morassi Prize for Art History in 1994. Under the direction of Umberto Eco, she designed a program of visual art on CD ROMs produced by Olivetti, dedicated to the history of European civilization in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, 1994, 1995, 1996. Although she was a visiting professor in the American universities of Yale, Brown and Johns Hopkins, she worked mostly at the Washington National Gallery, the Getty Center of Los Angeles and the Metropolitan Museum of New York. In 1996, the Académie de France in Paris bestowed upon her the title of “Chevalier dans l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres”. Furthermore, at Columbia University in New York, she held the 1999 Italian Academy Lecture Series.

Keith Christiansen

Keith Christensen is Chairman Department of European Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He has published widely on topics ranging from Sienese painting of the fifteenth century to Tiepolo in eighteenth-century Venice. His 1986 article on Caravaggio's practice of painting from the model, based on a direct examination of the artist's work in the exhibition 'The Age of Caravaggio,' was awarded the Arthur Kingsley Porter prize.

The Italian Cultural Institute of New York

Founded in 1961, the Italian Cultural Institute of New York is an office of the Italian government, dedicated to the promotion of Italian language and culture in the United States through the organization of cultural events. Under the guidance of its trustees at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, its advisory board, and its staff, the Italian Institute of Culture of New York conforms to this commitment by fostering the cultural exchange between Italy and the US in a variety of areas, from the arts to the humanities to science. Central to the Italian Cultural Institute's mission is a constant effort to encourage the understanding and enjoyment of Italian culture by organizing and promoting cultural events in collaboration with the most prominent academic and cultural institutions of the East Coast. The Italian Cultural Institute of New York focuses on the development of initiatives aimed at showcasing Italian excellence in various fields, such as science, technology, the arts and design. The development of academic exchanges, the organization and support of visual arts exhibitions, the grants for translation and publication of Italian books, the promotion of Italian studies, and the cooperation with local institutions in planning various events that focus on Italian music, dance, cinema, theater, architecture, literature, philosophy etc., are just a few examples of the Institute's initiatives. In conclusion, the Italian Cultural Institute of New York provides an "open window" on the cultural and social aspects of past and current Italy.

For more information please visit: [email protected]

Press contact : Eva Zanardi - Italian Cultural Institute New York Ph. +1 212 879-4242 ext.333 Fax +1 212 861-4018 [email protected] www.iicnewyork.esteri.it