Uffizi sends Giorgione, Titian and the Venetian Renaissance to Hong Kong

New Chinese move for the Uffizi, which is sending some masterpieces of the Venetian Renaissance to Hong Kong: flying to China are works by Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese for an exhibition running from Nov. 6 to Feb. 28, 2024. Titian and the Venetian Renaissance from the Uffizi, scheduled at the Hong Kong Museum of Art (Hkmoa), is the first major exhibition dedicated to the theme in the Asian metropolis. The result of a collaboration between the Uffizi Galleries and the Hong Kong Museum of Art, the second between the two major museums after the Botticelli exhibition in 2020, it brings to China 50 works by Titian and Venetian artists of the same period, such as Giorgione, Tintoretto, Paolo Veronese and other masters; largely portraits and works on biblical and mythological subjects, allowing visitors to immerse themselves in the artistic world of the Venetian school of painting. There are Titian’s Flora, Venus and Cupid with a Dog and Partridge, Portrait of Tommaso Mosti and Madonna of Mercy; Giorgione’s Moses Tried by Fire; Tintoretto’s Venus, Cupid and Vulcan; and Veronese’s Baptism of Christ.

This exhibition is the second collaboration between the HKMoA and the Uffizi under the Memorandum of Understanding signed between the two museums in 2019. The first exhibition, held in 2019, had been an exhibition on Botticelli and the Florentine Renaissance. To accompany the exhibition, the HKMoA invited local artists Leung Chi Wo and Chan Kwan-lok to draw inspiration from the Venetian school of painting to create their works, setting up a dialogue that spans the centuries to build a bridge between contemporary art today and the Italian Renaissance. The site-specific art installation, Tears of Tempo, created by visual artist Leung with vintage Venetian glass lamps from the 19th and 20th centuries, allows viewers to explore the subtle but inexorable signs of time; Chan Kwan-lok, on the other hand, uses traditional ink techniques to personify natural elements in the 13 gongbi paintings of his ink art installation, The Connection with Nature.

The exhibition, organized by Gallerie degli Uffizi and Hkmoa, is presented by the LCSD and MiC-Italian Ministry of Culture and sponsored by the Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust. In collaboration with the Consulate General of Italy in Hong Kong, the exhibition is supported by the Italian Cultural Institute of Hong Kong and is part of the ITALIA on STAGE program.

“The exhibition,” says the director of the Uffizi Galleries Eike Schmidt, “has given us the opportunity to restore about ten works from the Uffizi’s storerooms that until now were in no condition to be exhibited. Now they are finally shining in their original colors, and indeed we were able to observe that their quality was higher than previously thought, to the point that in the case of the Bacchanal, a work hitherto thought to be a 17th-century copy, it has emerged that it was painted under the eyes-and perhaps with a few brushstrokes-of Titian himself, in his workshop. With these findings, therefore, the virtuousness of the principle of generating money to support restorations from the proceeds of exhibitions is confirmed, while giving opportunities for new research through exhibitions abroad.”

Uffizi sends Giorgione, Titian and the Venetian Renaissance to Hong Kong

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