News & Stories

Save Venice launched the Women Artists of Venice (WAV) program in 2021 with the commitment to fund the conservation of Giulia Lama’s Four Evangelists in the church of San Marziale. In March 2022, art handlers from the UniSVe firm completed the complicated task of deinstalling the first two canvases of Saint Luke and Saint John from high above the imposing altar that houses Jacopo Tintoretto’s Saint Martial in Glory. The spandrels of Saint Mark and Saint Matthew on the facing altar will also be taken down in the coming weeks, so that all four artworks can undergo treatment led by Enrica Colombini. This project has been made possible with major support from anonymous donors in memory of Bernice F. Davidson, and additional support from Donna Malin. Visit our INSTAGRAM profile for more photos.

Other WAV restorations concurrently underway include a large painting by Giulia Lama in the church of Santa Maria Assunta in Malamocco on the Lido, and thirteen pastels by Rosalba Carriera and Marianna Carlevarijs in the Ca’ Rezzonico Museum. Stay tuned for upcoming features on these projects.

In addition to funding the treatment of more than a dozen WAV restorations, the program aims to foster new scientific and scholarly research, dialogue, and share these findings through conferences, publications, and exhibitions. The research track of WAV is led by Board member Tracy E. Cooper, professor at Temple University, and the art conservation component by Melissa Conn, Venice Director. WAV Research Associate Fellow Susan Nalezyty, adjunct lecturer at Georgetown University, is now working to create a WAV database that will serve as a tool to synthesize pre-existing and new scholarship with the aim of making results broadly accessible through an online portal.

Save Venice is grateful to the many inspiring women who are enabling the WAV program, and is pleased to feature one of our founding WAV patrons, Diane Apostolos-Cappadona, and statements from the scholars leading the research track. If you would like to join our campaign to recognize the Women Artists of Venice, please contact kim@savevenice.org.

“What excites me the most about the WAV program is the potential for discovery, for which Save Venice offers the crucial elements of art historical research allied with material investigation through its primary mission of conservation—neglected works, deteriorated ones, mis-attributed or un-attributed art can reveal new insights when treated—and the lost lives and associated production of women makers gain recognition. Ultimately, we hope to create a variety of resources that will propagate such discoveries and provide new tools to enable others to make further contributions to knowledge of early modern women artists of Venice.”-Tracy E. Cooper, Save Venice Board Member and professor at Temple University

“Art historical scholarship often takes place in isolation of object conservation. What makes the WAV Program so innovative is that it combines research to uncover the lived experience of women artists in Venice with scientific study to conserve the works that they had composed. It restores women to the historic record and preserves their work to be enjoyed for generations to come.”-Susan Nalezyty, WAV Research Associate Fellow and adjunct lecturer at Georgetown University

Recent WAV Press:
The Art Newspaper