FLORENCE, ITALY – The Nevada Museum of Art and arte italia bring 17th-century Florence, Italy, to life with a new exhibition. Italian Baroque: Paintings from the Haukohl Family Collection opens March 29 at the Nevada Museum of Art, Donald W. Reynolds Center for the Visual Arts, E. L. Wiegand Gallery located at 160 West Liberty Street in downtown Reno.
An additional exhibition at arte italia, 442 Flint Street, Reno, completes the Baroque experience with educational and sculptural artworks. Exclusively sponsored by the E. L. Wiegand Foundation and made possible by Sir Mark Fehrs Haukohl of Houston, Texas, the show is drawn from the largest private collection of Florentine Baroque art in the United States as well as other countries outside of Italy.
Between the late 16th- and early 18th-century, Florence, Italy teemed with color, science, and artistic innovations.
A new clarity in color, style and subject began to replace the elegant virtuosity of earlier painting. This exhibition explores the movement from its beginnings to the eighteenth century. From celebratory works such as Giovan Domenico Ferretti’s Harlequin and His Lady, to moving religious pieces like Pietro Dandini’s Esther before Ahasuerus, this show reveals the emotional exploration that defines the Baroque era. Lavish, ornate gold frames envelope each painting, completing the Florentine experience.
At arte italia, a story of the powerful Medici family unfolds through sculptural works. For nearly 400 years, the Medici were among Italy’s most significant patrons of the arts and sciences, influencing the birth of the Renaissance and subsequent rise of the Baroque era. Not only did the Medici influence the ascent of four Catholic popes, they also commissioned scientists, writers, and artists whose significant contributions to their disciplines are still widely felt. In this exhibition, celebrated sculptor Antonio Montauti (1685-1740) honors four of those Italian icons: Michelangelo Buonarroti, Galileo Galilei, Niccolo Machiavelli, and Marsilio Ficino.
“The E. L. Wiegand foundation is thrilled to ‘go for baroque,’” said Kristen A. Avansino, president and executive director of the E. L. Wiegand Foundation, which founded arte italia in 2008. “We welcome this stellar exhibition and its visionary collector, Sir Mark Haukohl, to our state.”
David Walker, executive director | CEO for the Nevada Museum of Art, echoes Avansino’s gratitude. “We are proud to feature Italian Baroque at the Nevada Museum of Art and to further extend the Haukohl Family Collection into the community with the companion exhibition at arte italia. As Nevada’s premier Italian Cultural Arts Center, arte italia is the perfect partner to bring these exquisite Florentine artworks to northern Nevada.”
The Haukohl Family Collection exhibition was made possible by Sir Mark Fehrs Haukohl, a collector and patron of the arts who lives in Houston. A co-founder of the Medici Archive Project, a non-profit foundation with the purpose of cataloguing over three hundred years of documents relating to the princely Medici family, he collects not only Florentine Baroque art but also contemporary European photography by women.
A fully-illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition, providing a scholarly context for the paintings in the Haukohl Family Florentine collection. Preface from Kristen A. Avansino, President and Executive Director, E. L. Wiegand Foundation. Director’s Foreword by David B. Walker, Executive Director | CEO, Nevada Museum of Art.
Italian Baroque, Paintings from the Haukohl Family Collection, March 29, 2014 – July 6, 2014, $5 per ticket