Pratt in Venice: a collaboration with UIA since 1984

Diana Gisolfi, Director of Pratt in Venice - UIA Newsletter #6

Pratt in Venice began in 1984, in collaboration with Università Internazionale dell’Arte, then located in the Palazzo Fortuny. This was a fortuitous beginning, as UIA hosts a conservation program during the academic year, is well connected with the various authorities in Venice, and has a goal of cultural exchange.

From the beginning UIA’s secretary, Massimo Angeletti was enormously helpful, providing contacts and instructions concerning how to write to and thank the various offices! Art History Professor Dimitri Hazzikostas and later Professor Joe Kopta, helped Gisolfi build a small Pratt in Venice Library housed at UIA to help students initiate research projects.

At first, we taught only Painting, Drawing, and Art History of Venice. This curriculum expanded in two ways. Professor Clare Romano (a famous printmaker) added printmaking to the drawing course and she connected us with the Scuola Internazionale dell’Arte for this facility. In 1989 Dean Eric Larrabee asked Gisolfi to propose a graduate seminar for the program. In Venice that year, students together with Gisolfi and painting Professor Richards Ruben visited the church of San Gregorio where Tintoretto’s Paradiso was under conservation as well as Titian’s ceiling paintings from Santo Spirito. Conservator Ferruccio Volpin explained his relining of the Tintoretto while Soprintendente Giovanna Nepi Scrié told of the discovery that the dark skies in Titian’s paintings of Cain and Abel, David and Goliath and Abraham and Isaac are repaintings of the 1600’s necessitated by water damage. This experience helped Gisolfi write the proposal for the fourth course in the program: Materials and Techniques of Venetian Art.

The program has benefitted from much local expertise, usually thanks to UIA’s connections, including such experts as Lorenzo Lazzarini, Paolo Spezzani and Antonio Stevan, along with lectures by visiting US scholars associated with Save Venice, Sarah McHam and Tracy Cooper, and much warm welcome from Academia Directors Paola Marini and Giulio Manieri-Elia.

Two Pratt presidents have visited as well as two provosts and several Deans and Chairpersons as well as the Director of Study Abroad. UIA’s presidents have each welcomed Pratt in Venice. Perhaps Prof. Fiorentin had the longest tenure as president. In addition to Massimo, and recently Cecilia Benzoni with Lisa Pierantonio, UIA presidents from Gasparini to Marinello have
hosted us.

UIA has welcomed an average of 20 Pratt in Venice students per summer for almost 40 years. Subtracting the Covid years of 2020 and 2021, We hope 2026 will be our 40ieth year on site!

Buone Feste from Pratt in Venice!

PiV Alumni: Jennella Young exhibits work and creates new community art space in Brooklyn

Pratt in Venice ‘10 alumna Jennella Young (MS Library Science, MA Art History) was featured in multiple exhibitions this past month and has also helped launch a new community art space in a former Pfizer building in Brooklyn. There, she produced a show with three other artists entitled “When Lullabies Become Walls” and curated a show on the history of the building.

Director's Report, 2025

Summer 2025 was the 39th on-site Pratt in Venice.

18 students participated (21 had been enrolled, but three non-US students withdrew including two graduate students due to concerns about visas or about returning).

Students were from Fine Arts and Art History as well as Communication Design and Digital Arts. One of the Art History students was from Princeton University.

In addition to our regular classes in painting, drawing/printmaking, art history of Venice, and materials/techniques of Venetian art and our traditional visits to Padua and Veneto sites, we had two visits from a star alumna of the program, Monique Rollins. Monique is a highly successful painter and gallery owner, living with her lovely family near Florence. She joined our Accademia Visit and participated in our discussions, and she returned for the final crit as a guest critic (accompanied for a part of the morning by her three beautiful children!)

Sarah Lichtman, Chair of History of Art and Design, spent two days on site with Diana, seeing our facilities and meeting faculty; she joined the HAD Materials and Techniques visit to the mosaic lab, the all group visit to the Doge’s Palace, and a faculty supper.

Another unique moment was the presentation at UIA of their pigment collection by the artist/pigment makers whom Michael Brennan has found to supply good quality colors.

We again enjoyed a special early entry to the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua to study Giotto, thanks to preservation architect Stevan who designed the lighting and climate control.

Our visit to the Veneto was blessed with extraordinarily clear dry weather. We could see the Alps from the Pullman as we headed from Castelfranco (and Giorgione) to Palladio’s Villas Emo and Barbaro with frescoes by Zelotti and Veronese, and again from our perch above Bassano where we enjoyed our traditional pranzo al fresco.

Liz Duntemann joined us to teach the on-site art history class, when Joe Kopta opted out. She brought in her expertise in the history of art and architecture related to healing.

Paolo Spezzani lectured to all on non-destructive ways to investigate art and wood conservator Enrica Colombini taught M&T students in a session in her UIA lab.

Students in Painting and Printmaking were highly productive as documented (together with art history research) in the exhibition opened in Dekalb Gallery on September 29. Kudos to them and to Michael’s curation and Fay Ku’s teaching bookmaking as well as printmaking.

Here’s to another successful year of Pratt in Venice!

Student Experiences, 2025

Jay Bailyn MLIS, MA Art History

I have been in love with Italian art history for as long as I remember. As a child I would

visit museums and inevitably end up standing, awe-inspired, in front of a painting, altarpiece or

sculpture from the Italian Renaissance. Due to this life long love, being able to spend six weeks

in Venice, where Italian renaissance painting reached such great heights, was a once in a

lifetime experience. An experience that I would urge anyone and everyone to try to partake in.

Pratt in Venice is incredibly special, you are able to spend time in one of the most

wonderful cities in the world with some of the best faculty in the world seeing some of the most

breathtaking art in the world. I truly think, over the six weeks I spent during this program, I have

learned equal to, if not more about art history than in many semesters spent in traditional

classroom settings. The ability to be up close and in person with these magnificent works of art

is a truly indescribable experience and so important for young scholars. As is having access to

the many different libraries and academic resources within the city. Some of the most special

moments for me during the program were spent with the Materials and Techniques class where

we would often get to go behind the scenes at some of Venice’s most famous sites such as the

mosaic lab at San Marco. Here, the class was given a tour of the lab and an incredibly

informative lecture on how the conservation of mosaics at Saint Mark’s Cathedral is conducted

as well as the history of mosaic conservation. We were also able to visit two Tintoretto

altarpieces that were under conservation by Save Venice at the church of San Giorgio

Maggiore. Visiting these pieces that I had written about in a paper the previous semester and

having the opportunity to see them up close and spend time appreciating all of the details that

one would not have been able to see looking at them up on a wall was genuinely one of the best

moments of my academic life.

I cannot write this letter without mentioning how incredible it was just to exist within the

city of Venice. This city is truly a work of art in and of itself and being surrounded by its history,

art, and culture for six weeks was just the cherry on top of a life-changing trip. I still sometimes

feel the gentle rock of the waves beneath the Vaporetto when I’m falling asleep. I will forever be

grateful to the wonderful faculty and staff who encouraged me to participate in the Pratt in

Venice program. I would urge anyone who is even just curious about Venice, art history or the

visual arts to participate in this amazing program.

Daisy Quan BFA Painting

Pratt in Venice was one of the most crucial components of my undergraduate career. It was

essential to experience Venice, to see the art and architecture in person. To walk into San Marco,

to stand in the silence of Torcello’s Santa Maria Assunta, to study the Palladian geometry of San

Giorgio Maggiore, or to wander through the Doge’s Palace was to learn more than slides or

books ever could. It was also to be reminded that art lives in its place, and that history lives on

every surface, on every wall.

I want to thank Diana Gisolfi in particular for her leadership and her years of work that have

made this program possible. That she has sustained and shaped Pratt in Venice for so many years

makes me especially grateful to have had the chance to participate in it. Thank you also to

Elizabeth Duntemann, whose art history instruction gave me a fuller, more complex

understanding of each site we visited.

Finally, I want to acknowledge the faculty who shared their own practices with us: Michael

Brennan, painting; Fay Ku, printmaking; and Jill. Each of them contributed to my experience of

this program.

In terms of my own artistic development, this summer gave me an opportunity to hone my ability

to look and to make. I was able to attend the Venice Biennale—something I had been looking

forward to for years—and that was an extraordinary experience, providing me both inspiration

and a sense of contemporary practice on a global scale. Along with this, I was able to forge

connections with peers and faculty that I will continue to build upon in the future.

Above all, however, I carry away from Venice a keener eye, a more rigorous mode of thought,

and a clear sense of how art study and art practice are inextricably linked. For this, I am deeply

grateful.

Remembering the life of Gerald Luss, PiV '10

Today, Pratt in Venice remembers the life of Gerald Luss, accomplished Pratt in Venice alum and generous supportor of the program.

"Gerald passed away peacefully on April 1st, surrounded by the love, attention, and compassion that defined his life. He is the love of my life, and I know his brilliance and grace touched and shaped so many of yours. 

Though Gerald didn’t want formal services to mark this moment, I hope all who knew him will take a moment to celebrate and honor the tremendous gift that his life was to the world. He will always be with us in the spaces he shaped, the art he created, and the lives he touched."

-Susan Luss

“Pratt in Venice misses Gerald Luss. Gerald and his wife Susan participated in Pratt in Venice in 2010. They returned to the Serenissima more than once in subsequent summers and have remained special friends and generous supporters of the program's scholarship fund. Our hearts are with Susan.”

-Diana Gisolfi, Diroector, Pratt in Venice

Gerald Luss’ piece for the Pratt in Venice 35th Anniversary show, 2019

Susan and Gerald Luss at the 35th Anniversary show

(Images courtesy of Jacob Grumulaitis for Pratt Institute and Angela Conant)

PiV Alumni: Adele Rossetti receives another Fulbright scholarship

Adele Rossetti Morosini, MFA Fine Arts (Painting); MS Theory, Criticism, and History of Art, Design, and Architecture ’97, is the recipient of a 2024-25 Fulbright U.S. Scholar grant, her second for research on the Atlantic Forest of Brazil. In Oct.- Nov., 2024, the first phase of the grant, she and Sergio Rossetti Morosini, MFA Fine Arts (Painting); MS Theory, Criticism, and History of Art, Design, and Architecture ’97 began documenting the species composition of a rare primary-growth fragment of the Araucaria forest ecosystem by collecting herbarium specimens, and recording it visually through photography, video, and botanical illustration. The study continues from April - May, 2025. Results of Adele's study go to the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden, an agency of the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment. The data will add to the information on which future conservation and reforestation policies for that ecosystem will be based.

PiV Alumni Mathew Deleget and Painting Professor Michael Brennan Featured in Portal 5 Exhibition

Presented at the new project space Portal 5 in Tribeca, NYC, Stargazer is a two-person exhibition by NYC area artists Michael Brennan and Matthew Deleget of recent works informed by their mutual love of astronomy and abstraction.

Brennan will present a set of new, small- to mid-sized monochromatic oil paintings on canvas and Deleget will premiere a suite of framed Sunspot Drawings annotated with astronomical information. The exhibition will be supplemented by a selection of publications about astronomy and abstraction from the artists’ respective libraries.

The exhibition is located at Portal 5 in Tribeca, New York:

Portal 5

373 Broadway, 5th Floor, #E11 (Tribeca)

New York, NY 10013

Hours: Saturday-Sunday, 12 - 5pm & by appointment

January 11 - February 9, 2024