Distinguished alum Susan Luss (PiV ‘11) was featured in Mind Leaves Body, an exhibition at Westbeth Gallery earlier this month.
Contributions to Pratt in Venice Scholarship welcome at any time!
Dear Pratt in Venice Alumni/ae and Friends,
I hope you have been following us on www.prattinvenice.com and Instagram!
If so, you know that we were again on site in summer 2023, without masks, and that the summer was productive and our Exhibition, held on campus Oct 16-21, was well-attended and beautiful! We also enjoyed visits from several alums who came along on an event or met for a cappuccino at the Cini Foundation café.
With 19 students and five faculty/staff plus our local collaborators and Italian teacher, we made good use of both the Università Internazionale dell'Arte and the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica, producing altogether a large body of work (see the website account of the October show).
Our traditional visit to Padua for Giotto, Donatello, and early Titian was preceded by the Ravenna daytrip, led by Joe Kopta, followed by our Veneto Daytrip to Giorgione's native Castelfranco, frescoed villas designed by Palladio and Bassano with Luisa's rustic pranzo all'aperto. Materials&Techniques students visited mosaic labs and conservation sites included a relatively late example of 18th century stucco decoration, while special group visits for all included Ca' Pesaro with its collection of Italian 20ieth century painting. Mostly, we were fortunate to be in a place that has weathered so much history and continues to cope with challenging climactic conditions creatively and with Fortitude!
As our website shows, tuition costs drive inevitable increased cost for our program. We wish the Program to be able to select participants on the basis of the students' promise not their wealth. So, I am again appealing to our alumni/ae for contributions to the Pratt in Venice Scholarship Fund. Such contributions are, of course, tax deductible. Gifts can be made online via www.prattinvenice.com under the donate tab, or checks can be made out to Pratt in Venice Scholarship Fund and sent to my attention at: Pratt in Venice, East Hall 202, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn NY 11205. (I can more quickly send my thankyou letter if you send check!)
GRAZIE and with all good wishes,
Diana Gisolfi, Director and Professor
Undergraduate and Graduate Experiences, 2023
Packed Opening at 2023 Pratt in Venice Exhibition!
Another amazing Pratt in Venice exhibition! Thank you to all the students and faculty who helped put it together, and for the generous support of those who donated to this year’s Silent Auction.
Director's Report, 2023
Diana Gisolfi, Director
If we count 2020 and 2021, the years when we were not on site, but did maintain our existence via faculty videos, a Zoom symposium of student alumni research, interviews with alumnae, and our newsletter…
Again, if we count these years, the 2023 program was our 39th year of Pratt in Venice.
Doge’s Palace visit.
Twenty-five participants, including our four faculty, our on-site assistant, and 19 students, both undergraduate and graduate, participated.
In addition, we enjoyed lectures from many local experts and visiting American scholars. The biggest presence, however, is always Venice herself, built in the sea on marshy islands and landfill between the fifth and eighteenth centuries. From a distance, across the water or from the air she appears a mirage, low buildings a reddish shade of bricks and tiles, with tall, thin vertical elements, reaching skyward, the belltowers.
Accademia visit & Titian’s Pietà.
Up close, the vision is glitter, gold, shimmering water, a symphony of color, a constantly-calling beauty. Walk through the Istrian stone doorframe of any church, pace the checkered floor of Verona red limestone and Istrian white limestone, contemplate the lapis lazuli of the tabernacle, the altarpiece by Bellini, or Titian.
On the day after arrival, we all do just that together, and we provide “Chorus passes” which invite students to similarily enter twenty churches, of equal beauty and treasure. For some of the many visual riches displaced after the fall of the Republic in 1797, we visit the Accademia: painting cycles from repurposed scuole (lay charitable institutions) and altarpieces from closed churches fill the rooms.
Art History students arranging UIA library; Painting student in UIA studio.
Our first painting class at Università Internazionale dell’Arte on the Giudecca Island, looking toward the lagoon, is preceded by lunch of tramezzini at the local “bar” which students will frequent throughout, purchasing many pannini and cappucini and espressi over the six weeks of the program. Earlier we had taken the vaporetto to the San Marcuola stop to introduce the Scuola Grafica where printmaking takes place.
Printmaking at Scuola Grafica
The first official art history on-site class consists of visiting the island of Torcello, where the architectural remains from the efforts of the earliest Venetians are found, while the first Materials/Techniques class takes place in our UIA library room to introduce our own collection of relevant texts, and next to the richer Cini Foundation Library in the Palladian Abbey of San Giorgio Maggiore.
Guest lecturers Tracey Cooper and Liz Duntman with Joe & Diana; Arlango instructing Materials & Techniques group at San Sebastiano.
Our group of students in 2023 was enthusiastically participatory, ready with questions and comments, collaborative, humorous, and almost always on time! Some novelties were the Solstice picnic organized by Jill Brandwein, on-site assistant, the night drawing session and little show organized by Fay Ku, the visit to the huge Palazzo Pisani to see 17th Century stucco and fresco conservation that Save Venice arranged for Diana’s students, the many large canvases produced in Michael’s class. Our traditional trips happened: the day in Ravenna, led by Joe Kopta, the Padua visit for all aided by architetto Antonio Stevan, the Veneto day with Castelfranco, Emo, Maser, Bassano (preceded by Paolo Spezzani’s lectures on non-destructive analysis of paintngs). As many students had visited the Peggy Gugenheim Museum already, our last group visit was voted to be the Ca’ Pesaro with its collection of modern art, especially Italian – featuring such artists as Mario Sironi, Giorgio Morandi, and Medardo Rosso.
Villa Barbaro with Diana & Clemente; Students at Bassano lunch.
Group photo on Palladio Bridge in Bassano.
Presentations by art history/materials students on the final Friday explored stone, mosaics, ships (galleys), gilded bronze, woodcuts, processional standards. The final crit revealed strong results in oil, watercolor, journal sketches, motion notypes, collagraphs, drypoint – promising a wonderful exhibition on Campus in October.
Final Crit at UIA.
Students working at night on the Grand Canal.
