Pastels enjoyed a surge in popularity during the 18th century, when artists like the Venetian Rosalba Carriera and the Swiss Jean-Etienne Liotard carried the medium to new heights. The exhibition presents a selection of superb works from the Getty collection by these pastellists and their contemporaries. With Davide Gasparotto we will explore the physical properties of pastels, the story of their rising renown across Europe, the career of the major practitioners, and the personalities of the sitters.

Led by Dr. Davide Gasparotto, Save Venice Board Member and Senior Curator of Paintings, Getty Museum.

Dr. Davide Gasparotto is Senior Curator and Head of the Paintings Department, and Chair, Curatorial Affairs at the J. Paul Getty Museum. A native of Bassano del Grappa, Italy, he was previously the Director of the Fondazione Piero della Francesca in Sansepolcro (1996-98), and a curator at the National Gallery of Parma from 1999 to 2012. From 2012 to 2014 he was Director of the Galleria Estense in Modena. He was also a Francis A. Yates Fellow at the Warburg Institute, London (1999), Paul Mellon Visiting Senior Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. (2007), and an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2011-2012). He organized several acclaimed exhibitions such as Pietro Bembo e l’invenzione del Rinascimento (Padova, Palazzo del Monte di Pietà, 2013, with Guido Beltramini and Adolfo Tura), Aldo Manuzio. Il Rinascimento di Venezia (Venice, Gallerie dell’Accademia, 2016, with Guido Beltramini), and Giovanni Bellini: Landscapes of Faith in Renaissance Venice (Los Angeles, Getty Museum, 2017-18).

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*Please note this event has limited in-person capacity and will be offered to qualifying supporters on a first-come basis.