Florence, two art historians to relaunch Pitti Palace's Gallery of Modern Art

The Modern Art Gallery of the Pitti Palace in Florence will have an all-female leadership: in fact, as of today, art historians Vanessa Gavioli and Elena Marconi will lead the Florentine museum, taking over from Simonella Condemi, the museum’s longtime director who recently retired. Condemi will continue to be involved in the activities of the Gallery of Modern Art in another role, however, as she has been appointed as a member of the Gallery of Modern Art’s Purchasing Committee.

Gavioli, who was born in Modena, and Marconi, who was born in Florence, both graduated and specialized at the University of Florence and come to the Pitti Palace after significant experience: Gavioli after years of service at the Superintendency of Florence, and Marconi after having been at the Superintendency of Bologna and then at the Galleria dell’Accademia. Vanessa Gavioli graduated with a thesis devoted to post-Macchiaiola painting and received her doctorate with a paper on the work of Mario Tinti, an art critic who lived at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Elena Marconi, after her dissertation on the 19th-century Florentine sculptor Pio Fedi, received her doctorate with a study on another Florentine sculptor of the same period, Luigi Pampaloni.

They have authored numerous publications, and also organized the international conference The U.S. and Florence 1815-1915, held at the Uffizi in September 2019 on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the American Consulate General in the Tuscan capital. They are also curators of a major exhibition dedicated to the painter Giuseppe Bezzuoli (1784 -1855) to be held soon at the Uffizi Galleries. Vanessa Gavioli and Elena Marconi specialize in nineteenth- and twentieth-century art: together they will guide the Pitti Palace Gallery of Modern Art, where the most important Italian artistic currents of the 19th and early 20th centuries are represented, and where is housed one of the richest and most significant nuclei of Macchiaioli painting (with works by Lega, Signorini, Fattori, Boldini) and masterpieces by Bezzuoli, Hayez, Pissarro, Medardo Rosso, Plinio Nomellini, and even Galileo Chini.

The two art historians, says the Uffizi directorate on which Palazzo Pitti depends, will have the task of protecting and enhancing the collections of this space, while enlivening and enriching it through exhibitions, scientific initiatives, and new acquisitions of works. In addition, they will take care of the installation of the collection of 19th- and 20th-century works destined for the Gallery last year as part of the imposing bequest of art historian Carlo Del Bravo and the remounting in four new rooms, hitherto inaccessible to the public, of the collection of works by Sicilian sculptor Domenico Trentacoste (1859 -1933). This, then, is the “mission” that the director of the Uffizi, Eike D. Schmidt, has entrusted to the two new officials.

“The Pitti Palace Gallery of Modern Art,” Vanessa Gavioli points out, “has a very important collection in the narrative of the art of the 19th century and the first decades of the last century. I will try to live up to this task that has been given to me.”

“I am doubly happy for this assignment, both because of the prestige of the Gallery of Modern Art and because we are linked with Vanessa by a long friendship that began in our university years,” says Elena Marconi. “Being able to work together is a beautiful achievement.”

“Friend and colleague Simonella Condemi, a great connoisseur of the period and of the Gallery of Modern Art, which she directed for a long time, leaves the baton to two dynamic scholars with solid experience,” Schmidt comments. “Elena Marconi and Vanessa Gavioli face the task of continuing her work and making their own contributions both in the arrangements and in the promotion of the collection. To them goes all my confidence, along with the wish that the exceptional challenge imposed by the projects ahead of them will multiply their strengths and bring us good surprises.”

Florence, two art historians to relaunch Pitti Palace's Gallery of Modern Art

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