The cloister of Santa Maria del Carmine,
home to Florence’s famed Brancacci Chapel, recently hosted a gala honouring
contemporary women who have made outstanding contributions to Florence’s artistic
heritage.
Organized by the Advancing Women
Artists Foundation, the evening featured a presentation of the foundation’s
upcoming restoration at the Carmine: a monument by nineteenth-century Tuscan
sculptor Félicie de Fauveau.
The foundation’s Nelli Award,
named for Florence’s first known woman painter, Suor Plautilla Nelli, was
presented to Dr. Beatrice Paolozzi Strozzi for her exceptional leadership as
director of the Bargello Museum, a post she has held since 2001.
English painting conservator
Nicola Ann MacGregor was honoured with the Outstanding Restorer Award, in
recognition of her 40-year career in Florence, where she has restored the likes
of Gentile da Fabriano, Botticelli, Pollaiolo and Artemisia Gentileschi.
Florentine contemporary artist
Donatella Mei was honoured with the Simonetta Vespucci Award, named for
Botticelli’s muse. Mei, who adopts various mediums to create stunning Plexiglas
light sculptures, is one of the few contemporary women artists whose work is exhibited
at Florence’s Modern Art Gallery (Her sculpture Escape from the Uffizi
is on display in Sala della Musica).
Friends of Florence founder
Countess Simonetta Brandolini D’Adda received the Anna Maria Luisa de’ Medici
Patroness of the Arts Award for her outstanding contributions to Florence’s
artistic heritage. Friends of Florence, the nonprofit organization that she
founded in 1998, has funded the restoration of the 22 major paintings flanking
Michelangelo’s David in the Galleria dell’ Accademia, as well as the
diagnostic analyses needed for the restoration of the statute itself. The
Uffizi’s Niobe room and its entire Tribune were restored by the Friends of
Florence, which also recently funded a stunning restoration of Ghiberti’s Gates
of Paradise.
