Leicester academic curates major art exhibition in Rome
A University of Leicester academic has curated a major art exhibition currently being shown at the Scuderie del Quirinale in Rome.
Professor David Ekserdjian, from the University of Leicester’s Department of History of Art and Film, curated “Correggio e Parmigianino. Arte a Parma nel Cinquecento. Art in Parma during the 16th century”, an exhibition which tells the story of the dramatic rise of the city of Parma as an artistic centre in the first half of the 16th century, thanks to the achievements of two great artists, Correggio and Parmigianino.
In addition to Correggio and Parmigianino, it showcases works by other artists of the so-called “School of Parma” who were influenced by them. In total, more than a hundred works will be shown, including Correggio’s Portrait of a Lady and Martyrdom of Four Saints, and Parmigianino’s Conversion of Saint Paul and Portrait of Antea.
Professor Ekserdjian was asked to curate the exhibition because he is the author of books on both Correggio (1997) and Parmigianino (2006), as well as numerous other publications on them and the artists in their immediate circle who also feature in the show.
He said “Exhibitions like this have two main purposes. One is to introduce this material - which comes from a very wide range of sources, from St Petersburg to Los Angeles - to a general public. The other is to allow specialists to compare works from all these places and thus to arrive at a better informed understanding of a whole variety of issues, not least concerning authorship and chronology. It cannot be stressed too strongly that looking at original works of art is a very different - and superior - experience to studying them via photographs or on a computer screen.”
The exhibition is at the Scuderie del Quirinale in Rome until 26th June.