“Lavinia Fontana: Trailblazer, Rule Breaker” – A major solo exhibition at the National Gallery of Ireland
The National Gallery of Ireland is dedicating a major solo exhibition to famous Bolognese artist Lavinia Fontana: Lavinia Fontana: Trailblazer, Rule Breaker.
A ground-breaking artist of her time, late sixteenth-century painter Fontana is widely considered to be the first woman artist to achieve professional success beyond the confines of a court or a convent. Fontana was the first woman to manage her own workshop, and the first woman to paint public altarpieces and female nudes. She maintained an active career, painting for many illustrious patrons, while also taking on the role of wife and mother. Exploring Fontana’s extraordinary life through her paintings and drawings, the exhibition offers insight into the cultural climate that enabled her to flourish as a female artist of the period.
This is the first monographic exhibition to examine Fontana’s work in over two decades, and the first to focus on her portraits. Curated by Aoife Brady - curator of Spanish and Italian art at the Gallery -, it brings together a selection of her most highly regarded works from international public and private collections, alongside the artist’s celebrated The Visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon, from the Gallery’s own collection.
The Davia Bargellini Museum of Bologna granted the loan of the painting Judith with the Head of Holofernes, restored for the occasion.
The oil on canvas, signed and dated LAVINIA FONTANA DE ZAPPIS FECE 1600, belongs to the painter's maturity. The conservation treatment made it possible to recover the very refined figurative details, the colours and the bright and lively lights and shades that mark Lavinia Fontana’s production. This painting was chosen as the guiding image of the exhibition.
Besides the varied programme of events complementing the exhibition, the National Gallery has organized an international symposium in which the life and work of this “trailblazer and rule breaker” artist, and her legacy will be explored (May 26). Amongst the experts, Professor Vera Fortunati of the University of Bologna, specialist in the study of women artists and curator of the 1994 and 1998 Lavinia Fontana exhibitions.
The exhibition opened on May 6 and is on view until August 27, 2023.