Farewell to Gioia Mori, art historian and great expert on Tamara de Lempicka

Art historian Gioia Mori, professor of Contemporary Art History at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, died yesterday in Rome. A figure of rare sensitivity and expertise, she is remembered for her studies on Tamara de Lempicka and for her tireless commitment to the promotion and dissemination of art through her work at the magazine Art e Dossier , of which she was editor from 1996 to 2007.

Educated between 1976 and 1981 at the University of Rome “La Sapienza,” where she graduated with an honors degree in History of Modern Art, Gioia Mori, in the course of her career, has devoted in-depth studies to prominent figures in theart, including Vittore Carpaccio, Carlo Crivelli, Sofonisba Anguissola, Giorgio de Chirico, Edgar Degas, Marc Chagall, Corrado Cagli, Renato Guttuso, Fabrizio Clerici, Frida Kahlo, Maryla Lednicka-Szczytt, Helen Dryden and Luisa Casati. Precisely on Luisa Casati, a fascinating and controversial character, Gioia Mori curated an exhibition at the Fortuny Museum in Venice in 2014, confirming herself as one of the leading scholars capable of interweaving art, history and costume. More recently, her work had focused on themes such as Art Deco in Italy, explored in depth at the San Domenico Museums in Forlì, and the image of the modern woman in the 1920s, examined in the exhibitions Schall und Rauch. Die wilden 20er at the Kunsthaus Zurich and at the Guggenheim Bilbao in 2020.

Among her most significant contributions are her work on women artists who emigrated from Russia, culminating in the exhibition Divine Avant-Gardes at the Palazzo Reale in Milan in 2020, and her work on women artists of the Renaissance and Baroque periods, recounted in the exhibition Le Signore dell’Arte. Stories of Women between the 1500s and 1600s, also at Palazzo Reale, in 2021, of which she was curator together with Annamaria Bava and Alain Tapié). Also relevant are her studies on the entanglement between Umberto Boccioni and Marchesa Luisa Casati, presented at the MART in Rovereto in 2020, and those on Sofonisba Anguissola’s Genoese years, recounted in the exhibition Rubens in Genoa at the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa in 2022.

In addition to her activities as a curator, Gioia Mori has made an important mark inpublishing. From 1996 to 2007 she edited the prestigious magazine Art e Dossier, published by Giunti, and from 2000 she was chief editor of the website “Artonline.” She also served as scientific director of the multimedia series “CdRom Arte” from 1996 to 1999.

However, it is for her studies on Tamara de Lempicka that Gioia Mori will be remembered as the world’s foremost expert. In 1994 she published the first book entirely devoted to the Polish painter, paving the way for a series of exhibitions that would consolidate Lempicka’s international reputation. These included exhibitions at the Palazzo Reale in Milan (2006), the Complesso del Vittoriano in Rome (2011), Paris (2013), Turin and Verona (2015), and Madrid (2018).

Until her last day, Gioia Mori worked with dedication on her latest endeavor: the first exhibition ever dedicated to Tamara de Lempicka by an American museum. The exhibition, now underway at the De Young Museum in San Francisco, will open in the spring at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. Sadly, Gioia will not be able to see it. Gioia Mori’s funeral will be held in Rome on Thursday, January 23, at 11 a.m., at the Church of San Giovanni Battista dei Fiorentini. With her passing, the art world loses a figure capable of combining academic rigor, attention to the public, passion and human sensitivity.

Farewell to Gioia Mori, art historian and great expert on Tamara de Lempicka

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.