Coming up this May, the CMRS Council will visit the Getty Villa in Malibu for an inside look at their collection of Byzantine Art with a tour by Curator Mary Hart and CMRS Associate Director and UCLA Professor of Art History Sharon Gerstel.
The previous outing in January to the Getty Center in Brentwood was on a Monday when the museum was closed to the public. Davide Gasparotto, the Senior Curator of Paintings, treated the CMRS Council to a private tour of the exhibition “Giovanni Bellini: Landscapes of Faith in Renaissance Italy”, offering the chance to get up close and personal with twelve masterpieces that rarely travel and had never before been seen together. With the gallery to themselves, the Council heard the curator’s own passion for Bellini’s work and his insight into the artist’s inspiration, the interests of Bellini’s patrons, and the process of curating such a unique exhibit. Being able to visit the empty galleries allowed Council members to view the paintings in a quiet and uncrowded setting which felt similar to the private devotional use that these intimate paintings were intended for. As a bonus, the council also visited the Getty’s loan exhibition “Caravaggio: Masterpieces from the Galleria Borghese”, featuring three larger-than-life paintings and Dr. Gasparotto’s reflections about the evolution of Caravaggio’s work and the logistics of bringing this loan exhibit to Los Angeles.
Join the CMRS Council to participate in future outings by donating to the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.