Investigating the Renaissance

The works that comprise this installation form one of the foremost collections of early Italian Renaissance paintings in North America. The core of Sienese and Florentine fourteenth and fifteenth-century paintings is complemented with strong examples of other Italian, Netherlandish and German paintings, sculpture and decorative arts. Artists represented include Fra Angelico, Taddeo Gaddi, Fra Filippo Lippi, Sandro Botticelli, and Giovanni di Paolo.

Investigating the Renaissance is installed in three exhibition galleries, including Warburg Hall, the single largest gallery in the Fogg Art Museum, which reopened to the public after serving as temporary office space for several years. Fitted with a sixteenth-century Burgundian wooden ceiling, Warburg Hall is one of the most distinctive exhibition spaces in North America. The art of the Renaissance has been central to the Fogg for much of the museum’s history, for visitors to the museum as well as for the teaching of the history of art. In recent years, however, the focus of museum practice and art history has shifted and diversified to the extent that this art seems culturally remote for many museum visitors, students and scholars.

Investigating the Renaissance is conceived with the twin goals of creating new audiences for these works, and creating new modes of access for those already acquainted with them. The Fogg Art Museum is especially well-placed to rekindle an interest in the art of the Renaissance because of its institutional history, the strength of its early Italian Renaissance holdings and the key role played by the Art Museums’ Straus Center for Conservation in the study, presentation and interpretation of these objects.

Organized by Ivan Gaskell, Margaret S. Winthrop Curator of Paintings, Stephan Wolohojian, National Endowment for the Arts Intern, and other members of the Fogg’s Department of Paintings, Sculpture, and Decorative Arts, in conjunction with the staff of the Straus Center for Conservation.

The installation has received support from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Getty Grant Program, and The Scott Opler Foundation, Inc.