On the tail of two successful exhibitions, the Uffizi Gallery has just announced their program for the remainder of 2017, and it’s going to be a big year. The rich line-up ranges from Renaissance themes and crucial moments in Medici collecting to the anniversaries of revolutionary activities across history and personal exhibitions by renowned contemporary artists.
The program will kick off on March 7 with Il restauro del trittico con la Resurrezione di Lazzaro di Nicolas Froment in the Sala del Camino, followed immediately by the inauguration of Plautilla Nelli. Arte e devozione in convento sulle orme di Savonarola in the Galleria delle Statue e delle Pitture on March 9th. Froment’s triptych will be presented after a long restoration, funded in part by the Amici degli Uffizi, and his role in the Italian interest for Northern art will be explored. Plautilla Nelli will focus on the life of the nun–artist Plautilla Nelli and her devotional images.
Three additional shows will open at the end of the month: Maria Lassnig: Woman Power at the Palazzo Pitti, part of the Uffizi’s new initiative, beginning this year, to dedicate two exhibitions to the work of two women, past and present, in the month of March; Facciamo presto! Marche 2016 – 2017: tesori salvati, tesori da salvare, an homage to Marche and the works whose homes are at risk in the earthquake-prone region. The proceeds of exhibition will be donated to help restore the monuments damaged by the earthquakes this past year; and Il cosmo magico di Leonardo da Vinci: l’Adorazione dei Magi restaurata. Leonardo da Vinci’s recently restored Adoration of the Magi will go on display alongside the similarly themed work by Filippino Lippi, who was called upon to paint his own Adoration when da Vinci abandoned his piece to move to Milan. The side-by-side display will highlight the political and cultural changes that took place in Florence in the little more than 10 years between the two works and how they influenced the execution of each piece.
Giuliano da Sangallo. Disegni dagli Uffizi, opening on May 9, will be the first monographic exhibition dedicated to Giuliano da Sangallo’s graphic art. Just in time for Florence’s patron saint’s day, Omaggio al Granduca: i piatti d’argento per la festa di San Giovanni will debut on June 24, with an eye towards the extraordinary and storied series of silver plates in the Medici collection and the political dealings that brought them to Florence. Switching to the contemporary, the nature-inspired monumental steel pieces of Helidon Xhixha will go on display mid-summer in the Limonaia in the Boboli Gardens, positioning themselves as an alternative to the Buontalenti Grotto.
Opening the fall season, the Sala del Camino will host Gli Uffizi e il territorio: bozzetti di Luca Giordano e Taddeo Mazzi per due grandi complessi monastici, focusing on two preparatory sketches by Luca Giordano and Taddeo Mazzi recently acquired by the Uffizi Gallery and which were originally designed for the decoration inside the Corsini Chapel in Santa Maria del Carmine and the Chapel of the Santissima Sacramento at the Sanctuary of Monte Senario, respectively. Mid-September, I nipoti del re di Spagna: il ritratto di Federico e Maria Anna di Lorena di Anton Raphael Mengs a Pitti will open in the Sala delle Nicchie in the Palazzo Pitti. The show will highlight the recently discovered incomplete painting by Mengs of two of Peter Leopoldo’s children, alongside another portrait by Mengs of the young children and a portrait of their brother, Francesco, the future Emperor of Austria, by Johann Zoffany. The focus will turn towards the East at the end of the month, with the show Il rinascimento giapponese: la natura nei dipinti su paravento dal XV al XVII secolo. Approximately 40 landscape and nature paintings on folding screens will go on display, coming from the golden era of Japanese art, which spanned the Muromachi and Edo periods (15th to 17th centuries).
The last three exhibitions of the year will shine light on the anniversaries of three revolutionary moments in history. Lucas Cranach, i ritratti di Lutero dalla collezione medicea will address the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s history altering 95 theses, which he posted to the doors of Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany on October 31, 1517. Lucas Cranach, whose portrait of Luther will be on display in the exhibition, became one of the leading artists of the new Protestant themes being expressed in artworks at the time. Ejzenštejn: la rivoluzione delle immagini will be a collaborative exhibition with the Puškin Museum in Moscow and the Cineteca Comunale di Bologna for the 100th anniversary of the Socialist Revolution in Russia, also known as the October Revolution). Sergej Ejzenštejn’s pioneering montage work will explored as one of the most revolutionary film editing developments of the 20th century. Finally, the year will come to an end with the focus back on the Medici family: Leopoldo de’ Medici, principe dei collezionisti, in celebration of the 400th anniversary of Leopoldo’s birth. This member of the powerful family amassed a collection that spanned vast interests and a variety of objects, the majority of which made their way into the Uffizi Gallery through Leopoldo’s nephew, Cosimo III. Their systematic entrance into the Tuscan family’s main museum was one of the most radical transformations in the museum’s history.
Il restauro del trittico con la Resurrezione di Lazzaro di Nicolas Froment
Uffizi, Sala del Camino
March 7 – April 30, 2017
Plautilla Nelli. Arte e devozione in convento sulle orme di Savonarola
Uffizi, Galleria delle Statue e delle Pitture
March 9 – June 4, 2017
Maria Lassnig: Woman Power
Palazzo Pitti, Andito degli Angiolini
March 25 – June 25, 2017
Facciamo presto! Marche 2016 – 2017: tesori salvati, tesori da salvare
Uffizi, Aula Magliabechiana
March 28 – July 30, 2017
Il cosmo magico di Leonardo da Vinci: l’Adorazione dei Magi restaurata
Uffizi, Galleria delle Statue e delle Pitture
March 28 – September 24, 2017
Giuliano da Sangallo. Disegni dagli Uffizi
Uffizi, Sala Edoardo Detti e Sala del Camino
May 16 – August 20, 2017
Omaggio al Granduca: i piatti d’argento per la festa di San Giovanni
Palazzo Pitti, Tesoro dei Granduchi
June 24 – November 5, 2017
Helidon Xhixha: in Ordine Sparso
Boboli Gardens
June 27 – October 29, 2017
Gli Uffizi e il territorio: bozzetti di Luca Giordano e Taddeo Mazzi per due grandi complessi monastici
Uffizi, Sala del Camino
September 5 – October 15, 2017
I nipoti del re di Spagna: il ritratto di Federico e Maria Anna di Lorena di Anton Raphael Mengs a Pitti
Palazzo Pitti, Sala delle Nicchie
September 18, 2017 – January 7, 2018
Il rinascimento giapponese: la natura nei dipinti su paravento dal XV al XVII secolo
Uffizi, Aula Magliabechiana
September 26, 2017 – January 7, 2018
Lucas Cranach, i ritratti di Lutero dalla collezione medicea
Uffizi, Sala del Camino
October 30, 2017 – January 7, 2018
Ejzenštejn: la rivoluzione delle immagini
Uffizi, Sala Edoardo Detti
November 7, 2017 – January 7, 2018
Leopoldo de’ Medici, principe dei collezionisti
Palazzo Pitti, Tesoro dei Granduchi
November 7, 2017 – January 28, 2018
