Eliana Willis

Botticelli’s Minerva and the Centaur (ca. 1482), which typically hangs beside his iconic Birth of Venus at the Uffizi, is among the 45 works shipped from Florence to the Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA) for a major new show. In Minnesota, its new neighbor is an ancient Roman sculpture of a centaur, also from the Uffizi. This is one of several stunning juxtapositions in “Botticelli and Renaissance Florence: Masterworks from the Uffizi” (until January 8, 2023)—an exhibition made possible by the close relationship between the Italian and American museums.
According to several individuals involved in its planning, the show is a reflection of the powerful ties between the two art institutions. The Uffizi’s director, Eike Schmidt, was curator of decorative arts and sculpture at the MIA for nearly seven years before taking up his post in Florence in 2015.
Two years ago, in the midst of the global pandemic, the Minneapolis museum decided it needed to plan something big for when life returned to normal. “We thought, we know this guy at the Uffizi, why don’t we give him a call?” Matthew Welch, the MIA’s deputy director and chief curator, told Artnet News at the show’s preview. “Of course, he was happy to talk to us.”
Welch added that the show is timely considering how we have spent the past two years practicing social distancing: “The Renaissance is all about the human touch. This is the perfect invitation back into the world.”
The exhibition, said Katie Luber, the Minneapolis museum’s president and director, “is an amazing example of the power MIA has to work with international partners—in this case the Uffizi—to bring works of art to our community that many of our visitors would never otherwise have the opportunity to see.”
She sees similarities between Florence and Minneapolis, which also has a vibrant art scene and a lot of cultural philanthropy. “There’s a spirit of inquiry here that I think is very similar to what you would see in Florence,” she said. Luber, who called Schmidt a “genius,” noted that his ability to successfully fulfill roles in both Minneapolis and Florence also speaks to the similarities between the cities. 
When Luber and Rachel McGarry, the MIA’s chair of European art—who co-curated the show with Cecilia Frosinini, the director of painting and drawing conservation at Florence’s Opificio delle Pietre Dure—visited the Uffizi, she asked McGarry to see if Schmidt would loan the centaur sculpture. Although his initial response was no, he soon agreed. “It was because we were there together, looking together, thinking about these things together,” Luber said. 
Schmidt said knowing the team in Minneapolis put him at ease about the exhibition. “I knew with whom we would be working,” he said. “If it would have been another museum, I would have also been open-minded, but I would have needed to figure out how many people do we have, what’s their background.”
Many new discoveries were made ahead of the exhibition. For example, a technical analysis of the MIA’s portrait of a young woman (ca. 1495) confirmed it is by Benedetto Ghirlandaio, brother of the more famous Domenico Ghirlandaio. And visitors to the MIA will be able to view delicate, rarely-seen Botticelli drawings—which can only be displayed 12 weeks every five years. One was requested for a show in San Francisco, so the Uffizi is sending it for six weeks each to Minneapolis and California.
“We took inspiration from King Solomon,” Schmidt joked of cutting the time in half. Among the drawings on display in Minneapolis is Two Male Nude Figures (ca. 1475–82), which hangs beside Spinario (late first century B.C.E. to early first century C.E.), the sculpture he copied.
Here is what Schmidt told us about three other highlights from the show:

Madonna of the Roses, (1490–1500)
Botticelli’s Adoration of the Child with Angels, also known as Madonna of the Roses (1490—1500). Photo courtesy of Minneapolis Institute of Art
The frame of the Adoration of the Child with Angels, also known as Madonna of the Roses (1490–1500), still reads “Scuola di Sandro Botticelli,” but conservation and scholarly analysis has reversed the attribution. “Before, it was thought to be a workshop [piece], with perhaps [details by] Botticelli,” Schmidt said. “It’s a Botticelli with workshop [details].” Student work can be seen, particularly in an awkwardly drawn figure on the right, and Schmidt doubts that the older, in-demand Botticelli painted each leaf and flower. The Madonna figure, however, is characteristic of his hand.

Adoration of the Magi, (1470–75)
Botticelli, Adoration of the Magi (1470–75), Le Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence. Photo: Uffizi Galleries
Adoration of the Magi (1470–75) famously features a self-portrait of Botticelli in the foreground on the right. In the New Testament scene, the artist included the painting’s commissioner alongside several prominent Medici family members—both living and dead.
“Nowadays, we would think, ‘How dare they!’ But it’s the opposite,” Schmidt said, explaining that it actually shows their humility as they get down on their knees to take part in this very old tradition. He noted that the Medici would dress as the Magi as part of a sacra rappresentazione, or sacred theater, during annual events to mark the Epiphany.  
The picture reflects the wealthy’s desire to be close to Mary, Joseph, and the Christ Child, and for Florentines to appear alongside the Medici. “It’s about being close to power—taking your selfie with a famous baseball star,” Schmidt said. “It’s a diagram of power in Florence.”

Saint Augustine in His Study, (ca. 1494)
Botticelli, Saint Augustine in His Study (ca. 1494), Le Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence. Photo: Uffizi Galleries
Another newly understood work is Saint Augustine in His Study (ca. 1494), which features the saint along with roundels of Roman emperors and the Madonna and Child, suggesting continuity between Saint Augustine and pagan antiquity. Some scholars think the saint is translating a text, but the torn papers on the floor don’t jibe with that analysis. One would scrape and reuse costly velum, rather than discard it.  
“The new theory—which is totally convincing to me and is published for the first time here in the catalog—is that these are actually [Saint Augustine’s] retractions,” Schmidt said. “Towards the end of his life, when he looked back at all his theology, he said, ‘Well this is where I was wrong.’” 
Botticelli’s blend of ancient Roman symbolism with (then) contemporary Catholic iconography is a recipe that is at the heart of the exhibition, and it typified the Renaissance, said Schmidt. “I would argue that this is more relevant than certain things that are explicitly reacting to specific issues of the present day,” he said. 
“Botticelli and Renaissance Florence: Masterworks from the Uffizi” is on view at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, until January 8, 2023.

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The first U.K. exhibition to explore the life and work of the Renaissance sculptor Donatello (ca.1386—1466) is due to open next February at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London. 
Several of the most-prized exhibits will make their U.K. debut in the 130-piece show, which offers museum-goers a chance to learn more about Donatello’s impact on the early Italian Renaissance as well as his influence on later artists. 
Among the important loans is an early marble sculpture of David (ca. 1408—09) from the Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence. One of the artist’s most significant early commissions, he sculpted it when he was in his early 20s for the Cathedral of Florence, but it was eventually installed in the Palazzo della Signoria. 
Two relief sculptures will be seen together for the first time when the V&A’s Ascension with Christ Giving the Keys to St Peter (ca. 1428—30) is reunited with Madonna of the Clouds (ca. 1425—35) from the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 
Donatello, Reliquary bust of San Rossore. Photo courtesy of The Ministry of Culture Italy— Regional Directorate of Museums of Tuscany, Florence.
The landmark exhibition will also feature a reliquary bust of San Rossore from the Museum Nazionale di San Matteo in Pisa, bronzes from the High Altar of the Basilica of St Anthony in Padua, and the bronze Attis-Amorino from the Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence. 
The son of a wool merchant who trained as a goldsmith, Donatello’s story brings to life many aspects of society and culture in 15th-century Florence, including the power and patronage of the Medici family and their elite circle with whom he forged a close relationship. 
Audiences can expect to learn how the master’s inventive genius enabled him to combine a range of influences from various periods to create a bold new style. He was skilled in working in a wide variety of materials, including marble, wood, bronze, terracotta and stucco, and examples in this show promise to reveal the considerable diversity of his talent.
“Donatello was a driving force behind the Italian Renaissance and an inspiration to artists across centuries,” said the exhibition’s lead curator Peta Motture. 
“The exhibition provides a unique moment to experience, enjoy and—for those less familiar with his work—discover Donatello’s astonishing talents and his wide-ranging impact on Renaissance and later art.”
Works by Donatello will be joined by several pieces by his contemporaries, including those by the architect and sculptor Michelozzo, to further contextualize his practice.
“Donatello: Sculpting the Renaissance” will be on view from February 11 to June 11, 2023.

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Each gallery of the Hammer Museum’s recently opened exhibition, “Joan Didion: What She Means,” explores a chapter of the revered writer’s life—from her roots in Sacramento to her last years in New York.
The final room is titled “Sentimental Journeys” after a 1990 essay that Didion, who died in late 2021 at age 87, published in the New York Review of Books. Centered on the 1989 Central Park jogger case, the essay unravels the threads of race, class, and “preferred narratives,” which, tangled together, led to the unjust conviction of the young Black men known as the Central Park Five (now the Exonerated Five since their convictions were vacated in 2002).
Didion had not always been so good at writing about race. When she wrote about Black Panther leader Huey P. Newton in 1968, she called him a “black militant,” not pausing to interrogate what such a term might convey or from where, or whom, it came. When she wrote about the 1965 Watts uprising, she treated it as a vague inevitability: “For days one could drive the Harbor Freeway and see the city on fire, just as we had always known it would be in the end.”
Noah Purifoy, Watts Uprising Remains, (ca. 1965-66). Photo: Karl Puchlik
“Joan Didion: What She Means,” curated by writer Hilton Als alongside the Hammer’s Connie Butler and Ikechúkwú Onyewuenyi, allows Didion to be complicated. In fact, included in the “Sentimental Journeys” gallery is a sculpture by Noah Purifoy made from the rubble of the Watts uprising, an elegant work that looks like a pile of charred pages. Placed here, the sculpture recalls Didion’s flawed 1960s writing, and seems implicitly to acknowledge how much her writing changed in the decades between the 1960s and 1990s. “Is Joan Didion a legend?” a journalist recently asked Onyewuenyi. Onyewuenyi responded, “I want to keep her as a writer. I think she’s a writer.”
Hilton Als, a New Yorker staff writer who won a Pulitzer Prize in 2017, conceived of this exhibition about Didion before the writer’s death. He had previously curated what he calls “exhibitions as portraits” about writers James Baldwin and Toni Morrison at David Zwirner Gallery. Als wrote to the Hammer, broaching the possibility of a show with Didion, and conversations with the museum began in fall 2019. “This project had Didion’s blessing,” wrote Als and Butler in the catalog. “Didion is as much a co-curator of this exhibition as we are.”
The exhibition begins with a section called “Holy Water,” after an essay in which Didion reflected on her drought-prone home state of California. All of the objects in this first section reference the state in one way or another, though not always literally. A 1930 woodblock print by the Japanese-American artist Chiura Obata titled Evening Glow at Mono Lake, from Mono Mills (1930) depicts blue water underneath purple mountains and a sky that glows pink through heavy clouds. A nearby wall-hanging ceramic sculpture by Los Angeles artist Liz Larner, inflexion (2013), has a strikingly similar palette, but is otherwise abstract.
Liz Larner, inflexion, (2013). © Liz Larner. Courtesy of Regen Projects, Los Angeles
Two ethereal 1970s landscapes by the artist Suzanne Jackson imbue trees, hills, and clouds with such energy that they appear in motion. Like Didion, Jackson spent part of her childhood and her college years in Northern California, then, in the second half of the 1960s moved to Los Angeles. Unlike Didion, Jackson was directly affected by racism in the city, and the Los Angeles Police Department’s war on Black activists, especially after Jackson showed the work of Emory Douglas, the Black Panther’s Minister of Culture, in the gallery she operated. Two paintings by Ben Sakoguchi, a Japanese-American artist whose family was interned during World War II, come from his 1974–81 satirical series “Orange Crate Labels,” in which he uses the state’s signature citrus as a vehicle to criticize the exploitation of labor, racism, and war-mongering.
“The show is really like a collage,” said Onyewuenyi, who took on the task of researching Didion’s California lineage. Her 2003 book Where I Was From goes deep into her family’s history in the state: how her great-great-great-grandmother, Nancy Hardin Cornwall, traveled West toward California with the Donner-Reed party, breaking off from the group before the members famously found themselves snow-bound in the Sierra Nevadas, resorting to cannibalism. Throughout Where I Was From, Didion repeatedly mentions the potato masher that Cornwall brought West with her—for Didion’s family, “the potato masher that crossed the plans” was treated as “evidence of family endurance, proof of our worth.”
The masher is displayed in the “Holy Water” section of the Hammer exhibition (it may not have appeared in the show if Los Angeles Times columnist Carolina Miranda had not tracked it down following Didion’s death, finding it at the Pacific University Museum in Oregon, and inspiring Onyewuenyi to get in touch with the museum as well), alongside multiple other objects that belonged to Didion’s ancestors such as William Geiger, her great-great-grandfather. Geiger, a surveyor, studied at an abolitionist college in Illinois; yet when he arrived in California, he surveyed land for John Sutter, the founder of Sacramento known for murdering and exploiting the labor of Indigenous people. “For me, I was interested in giving some materiality to this history and [Didion’s] past,” said Onyewuenyi. “It also almost revealed these kinds of paradoxes.”
Still of Andy Warhol, Reel 77 of **** (Four Stars), (1967). Courtesy of the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA, a museum of Carnegie Institute
After “Holy Water” comes “Goodbye to All That,” featuring photographs by Diane Arbus and a film of a sunset by Andy Warhol, and tracing Didion’s first move to New York in the late 1950s (where she wrote for Vogue and married her husband, John Gregory Dunne) and then back to Los Angeles.
Next is “The White Album,” a section of the exhibition that treats Didion’s writing about the 1960s more like a jumping-off point than a template. Vija Celmins’s pithy yet haunting 1964 painting of a hand pulling a trigger shares space with Betye Saar’s explorations of mysticism and astrology (Mystic Chart for an Unemployed Sorceress from 1964 is layered with marks, suns, and moons). Saar lived in Laurel Canyon before the musicians Didion wrote about, including Jim Morrison, moved there, and her presence in the exhibition underscores how worlds overlapped in the period when Didion penned some of her best-known essays. Elsewhere, 1974 surveillance footage of Patty Hearst robbing the Hibernia Bank in San Francisco (which Didion wrote about) loops on the same monitor as footage of activist Angela Davis’s 1971 trial (which Didion did not write about).
Vija Celmins, Untitled (Double Desert), (1974). Photo: Ian Reeves
Only a few works reference the writer directly, among them a nostalgic installation and two drawings by Jack Pierson, and two portraits Don Bachardy made of Didion in the 1970s. Both show her pensive and unsmiling. In 2016, Bachardy, longtime partner of the novelist Christopher Isherwood, told Vanity Fair that Didion and her husband Dunne used to pursue Isherwood, courting his attention: “They were both highly ambitious, and Chris was a rung on the ladder they were climbing.”
Many valid, well-formed criticisms have been leveled at Joan Didion over the decades (see: Barbara Grizzuti Harrison’s 1979 essay “Only Disconnect”), but I am always struck by those who take issue with the writer’s ambitions and contradictions, using these to call her work into question. Consider Daphne Merkin, who quotes Didion writing that “I was obscurely ashamed to go to dinner with yet another editor, ashamed to sit down again and discuss this ‘work.’” Then Merkin quotes a close friend of Didion’s saying that “I never saw ambition like that,” as if it is somehow suspect—or, in Merkin’s words, “almost transactional”—to be both ambitious and embarrassed about it.
These criticisms seem often to stem from frustration over Didion’s prominence, over her status as “legend” rather than just “writer.” The proliferation of other voices in “Joan Didion: What She Means” makes it clear that she was one of many figures trying to make sense of the world, and within this chorus, there’s space for Didion to mean more than one thing—and to change.
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Few skewered Victorian Britain’s social mores as relentlessly as Aubrey Beardsley. None did so more salaciously, as an exhibition at America’s oldest club for bibliophiles proves.
In the confines of its second-floor gallery, the Grolier Club of New York presents an intimate snapshot of a man whose erotic and satirical illustrations challenged contemporary norms of sexuality and gender. With images of bare-chested women, phalluses, and flagellation, it’s unsurprising Beardsley continues to be a favorite of precocious and artsy teens.
Marking the 150th anniversary of Beardsley’s birth, the exhibition showcases 69 works related to the artist. These include swirling and intricate ink-on-paper illustrations, provocative magazine cover designs, coquettish theater posters, and photographic portraits (including one he sent to a friend months before he died at the age of 25 from tuberculosis, a disease that had plagued him since boyhood).
“This is a moment when new notions of gender and sexuality, beyond binaries, are all around us, including in art. Beardsley got there first,” Margaret D. Stetz, the exhibition’s cocurator, told Artnet News. “He changed the look of everything, from magazine publishing and book illustration to prints and posters.”
As “Aubrey Beardsley, 150 Years Young” makes clear, in both reach and inspiration, the Brighton-born artist was forward-looking and international. He was an early champion of photochemical reproduction and benefited from the development of phototelegraphy, or the electric transmission of pictures, a technology that allowed his images to printed in countries across the world. His use of vacant space in his monochromatic illustrations owe much to Japanese woodblock prints, and he was a devout reader of English, French, and American literature—with his cover illustrations for works by Alexander Pope and Edgar Allan Poe on display at the Grolier Club.
Moreover, Beardsley’s distinctive sense of line and provocative spirit remain influential. “Certain genres, such as the graphic novel, would be inconceivable without the example of Beardsley’s style,” said Stetz, a professor of women’s studies at the University of Delaware. “We can trace a line from Beardsley’s outrageous street art to the idea of contemporary street graffiti as an artistic and political medium that assaults convention.”
Aubrey Beardsley. Oscar Wilde at Work. [London: Stuart Mason, June 1914]. Photomechanical engraving on Japan vellum. Mark Samuels Lasner Collection, University of Delaware Library, Museums and Press.Beardsley’s most celebrated artistic connection, however, is with Oscar Wilde. In 1894, Beardsley provided the illustrations for Wilde’s translation of Salomé, including a grotesque one shown at the Grolier Club that depicts the dancer holding John the Baptist’s severed head aloft. The work displeased Wilde. He felt the illustrations overpowered the text, and when he criticized Beardsley publicly, a rift developed. Beardsley’s response, inevitably, was to pen a caricature. In Oscar Wilde at Work, the writer appears a lazy dandy who postures by surrounding himself with books. (On the subject of hard work, Beardsley stood on solid ground: born into a modest family, he’d been an insurance clerk until he got his break.)
The association with Wilde, who went on trial for “gross indecency” in 1895, would cost Beardsley his position on The Yellow Book quarterly, for which he was the art editor. But it mattered little: Beardsley’s talents were in demand and widely recognized, as evidenced by the fact that between 1892 and his death in 1898, he produced more than 1,000 completed drawings. The works on display here continue to titillate and surprise even the modern viewer.
Aubrey Beardsley, poster for the Avenue Theatre (1894). Mark Samuels Lasner Collection, University of Delaware Library, Museums and Press.
The Yellow Book: An Illustrated Quarterly. Volume I, April 1894. Mark Samuels Lasner Collection, University of Delaware Library, Museums and Press.
“Aubrey Beardsley, 150 Years Young” is on view at the Grolier Club, 47 East 60th Street, New York, NY, 10022, through November 12, 2022.
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