Lavinia Fontana: Pioneering Painter of the 16th Century

Italian painter Lavinia Fontana was the first female artist to achieve professional success outside a convent or royal court, the first woman to be accepted into the prestigious Accademia di San Luca in Rome, the first woman to paint large-scale public altarpieces and female nudes, and the first documented female artist to have her own workshop. Recently a painting on copper and a preparatory drawing by Fontana entered the Getty Museum’s collection. A specialist of Bolognese painting, Aoife Brady discusses the artist’s remarkable career and creative process.
The two recently acquired works by Lavinia Fontana will be on view at the Getty Center in the West Pavilion (gallery W104) from January 26 to March 26, 2023. This program was presented Online on Wednesday, February 1, 2023, www.getty.edu/visit/cal/event....
Dr. Aoife Brady is the curator of Italian and Spanish art at the National Gallery of Ireland. Her primary research interests relate to the study of painting techniques, materials, and artists’ studio practices, with focus on 17th-century Italy and Spain. Brady’s recent curatorial projects include an exhibition of work by Joaquín Sorolla entitled Sorolla: Spanish Master of Light in partnership with the National Gallery, London, and an in-focus exhibition of Bartolomé Esteban Murillo’s series of paintings depicting the parable of the Prodigal Son, a collaboration with the Museo del Prado, Madrid, and the Meadows Museum, Dallas. Brady is currently working on a large-scale exhibition examining the work of Lavinia Fontana, scheduled to open in Dublin in May of 2023.
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[@cathydarves7078]

Wonderful presentation and a good promotion for the upcoming exhibition.

[@mayrie7056]

What a remarkable women and gifted artist! Visited the exhibition in Dublin today and especially how detailed she painted clothing and dresses stand out to me. You can almost feel the fabric

[@PoggioloTuscany]

I was waiting to hear (19 min into the talk) some sort of acknowledgement of the art historian Caroline Murphy, whose monograph on Lavinia Fontana (Yale UP 2003) remains the most authoritative study to date. Murphy's extensive archival research provides the biographical information covered in the first 30 minutes of this talk, and the contextualization/interpretation of many of the paintings covered there. The pathbreaking work of this scholar might have merited a trifle more recognition? Such an observation aside, congratulations on this acquisition!

[@notanemoprog]

At 42:47 "then if you want to read a bit Fontana specifically one of the best monographs in English was by an author named Caroline Murphy that was published in 2003 but it's still an invaluable resource resource for information on the life of the artist"

[@christianfrommuslim]

It would be interesting to know what Lavinia's father and children were made ill by. Certainly there were many diseases then, but one wonders if toxins in the paints played a role.