Eike Schmidt: "My heart is here in Florence. At the Uffizi there is still so much work to be done, I would like to stay."

The director of the Uffizi Galleries, Eike D. Schmidt, has made some statements regarding his decision to give up his post as director of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, for which he was appointed in 2017. Schmidt’s intention is to remain at the Uffizi: in fact, the director said he is very attached to Florence and said there is still a lot of work to be done.

“I have decided to give up directing the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna,” Schmidt said at a press conference yesterday, “despite the fact that I won a competition there two years ago and despite the fact that I have gone to Vienna repeatedly in the meantime to prepare for this future work: Florence is too close to my heart. We are at a stage where we are seeing the first important fruits of all the measures we have put in place as a team, all together: at the Uffizi there really is a fantastic team with whom I have the opportunity to collaborate every day, and whom I want to thank.”

To give up Florence, Schmidt said, "was really a non-trivial decision, not a simple one, but a very clear one: I would like to stay in Florence, there is still so much to do. This is in spite of all the historical connections between the Uffizi and Vienna collections, especially from 1737 to 1859, when during the Habsburg-Lorraine reign many masterpieces were transported from the Habsburg residences to Florence, starting with works like Titian’sMadonna of Roses, Giorgione’sSacred Allegory, Rubens’ Four Philosophers: we have so many masterpieces that came here from Austria. Even the Jan van Huysum painting that was recently recovered from Germany was bought by Leopold II, so by a Habsburg-Lorraine, and then we have a masterpiece of not only Habsburg but in a sense Viennese architecture within the Boboli Gardens, namely the Kaffeehaus that we are restoring to its original function, which was to be able to serve from drinks and sweets. So we have a lot of connections, just as we also have, moreover, a lot of loans in both directions. I am convinced that, after this decision of mine, even these relationships will not be diminished but, on the contrary, will intensify."

Regarding his future, which could be tied to Florence (although Minister of Cultural Heritage Dario Franceschini said yesterday that Schmidt’s stay at the Uffizi can be discussed only if it does not create diplomatic incidents with Austria), the Uffizi director said that his decision to stay at the Uffizi is only the first step: “first I had to give up, now I am running for a second term. I hope that I will be given this chance. I am from time to time in contact with Rome, but this was a step I had to take, which concerns me, my person, and not Rome. Of course on my resume it would have been a nice thing to put also the Kunsthistorisches Museum, one of the most important in the world, but still I do not live for my resume, or for my epitaph: I live for my life, for Florence and for the Uffizi.” The decision to stay has matured, Schmidt emphasized, based on the knowledge that there are important projects to be pursued, starting with the Vasari Corridor and the new layouts.

Finally, Schmidt said that the decision to relinquish the directorship of the Kunsthistorisches was consensual (“I was in Vienna last week,” Schmidt said, “I spoke extensively with the current director of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, who is in a symmetrical situation to mine, because she, too, had projects she wanted to pursue.”), that he will be in Vienna between today and tomorrow to clarify the points that remain unresolved, and that officially her last day of work at the Uffizi always remains October 31, which by the way, she recalled, “is Anna Maria Luisa de’ Medici’s day, the day of the family pact that Anna Maria Luisa de’ Medici signed with Francis Stephen of Habsburg-Lorraine to leave the works of art of Florence in the hands of the Habsburgs: here instead we have an opposite situation, I personally am leaving the Habsburg lands to remain in Florence instead.”

“The bottom line,” Eike Schmidt concluded, “is that my heart is here in Florence and that will not change.”

Eike Schmidt: "My heart is here in Florence. At the Uffizi there is still so much work to be done, I would like to stay."

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