Awards In Italian Culture 2019
American Award to Xavier F. Salomon
Xavier F. Salomon is the Frick’s Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator. A noted scholar of Paolo Veronese, he curated the monographic exhibition on the artist at the National Gallery, London (2014). Previously, Salomon was Curator in the Department of European Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and, before that, the Arturo and Holly Melosi Chief Curator at Dulwich Picture Gallery, where he curated Van Dyck in Sicily, 1624–25: Painting and the Plague (2012) and collaborated with Nicholas Cullinan on Twombly and Poussin: Arcadian Painters (2011). As an Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow at the Frick (2004–6), he curated Veronese's Allegories: Virtue, Love, and Exploration in Renaissance Venice (2006). Salomon’s other exhibitions for the Frick include Cagnacci’s Repentant Magdalene: An Italian Baroque Masterpiece from the Norton Simon Museum (2016–17), Veronese in Murano: Two Venetian Renaissance Masterpieces Restored (2017–18), Murillo: The Self-Portraits (2017–18), Canova’s George Washington (2018), Tiepolo in Milan: The Lost Frescoes of Palazzo Archinto (2019), and (with Aimee Ng and Alexander Noelle) Bertoldo di Giovanni: The Renaissance of Sculpture in Medici Florence (2019–20). Salomon received his Ph.D. on the patronage of Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini from the Courtauld Institute of Art. He has published in Apollo, The Burlington Magazine, Master Drawings, The Medal, The Art Newspaper, Journal of the History of Collections, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art Journal. Salomon also wrote (with Maira Kalman) the latest volume in the Frick Diptych series, Rembrandt’s Polish Rider (2019). He sits on the Consultative Committee and is a trustee of The Burlington Magazine. He is also a member of the International Scientific Committee of Storia dell'Arte and Arte Veneta and a trustee of Save Venice. In 2018, Italy named Salomon Cavaliere dell’Ordine della Stella d’Italia.
Italian Award to Paola D’Agostino
Paola D'Agostino was appointed Director of the Museo Nazionale del Bargello in 2015. This recently created museums' consortium, now called Musei del Bargello, comprises five major institutions in Florence: The Museo Nazionale del Bargello, the group's headquarter, the Medici Chapels, the Church and Museum of Orsanmichele, Palazzo Davanzati and Casa Martelli. An expert on Renaissance and Baroque sculpture, Dr. D'Agostino was the Nina and Lee Griggs Assistant Curator in European Art at the Yale University Art Gallery from 2013 to 2015, where she co-curated the exhibition The Critique of Reason: Romantic Art 1760–1860. Previously, she worked as Senior Research Associate in the Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. During her tenure at the Metropolitan she contributed to the forthcoming catalogue of Italian bronze sculpture and co-organized the exhibitions Bernini: Sculpting in Clay (2012-2013), and Antonio Canova: The Seven Last Works (2013).
She studied at the Università degli Studi di Napoli 'Federico II', where she received her Ph.D., at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London (M.A.) and at University College London (MPhil program). She collaborated on the exhibition Earth and Fire. Italian Terracotta Sculpture from Donatello to Canova at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts (2001–2002).
She has published several articles on Baroque sculptors and the artistic relationship between Spanish and Italian art in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Her book Cosimo Fanzago scultore, the leading sculptor in Baroque Naples, was published in 2011.
Paola D'Agostino's work is characterized by a comparative approach. Her rigorous close study of objects, in terms of technique and style, is always combined with a broader analysis of patrons' demands and historic context. This often entails the juxtaposition of works of art in different media, in order to give a more cogent picture of the manufacture and distribution of artifacts, as well as understand issues of design and function.
Since Dr. D'Agostino's appointment as Director of the Musei del Bargello, she initiated several major reinstallations and renovations projects in all the five museums, improved access to visitors, forged international partnership with prestigious Italian and foreign Museums, fostered academic relationships with several Italian and American Universities and organized groundbreaking exhibitions at the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, such as Verrocchio, the master of Leonardo in collaboration with the Fondazione di Palazzo Strozzi and the National Gallery of Art, Washington.
Previous FIAC Awards
2018
Gabriele Finaldi
Richard Armstrong
2017
Paola Marini
Ian Wardropper
2016
Davide Gasparotto
Eike Schmidt
2015
Mariella Utili
Eric M. Lee
2013
Colin B. Bailey
Daniela Porro
2012
Brian J. Ferriso
Antonia Pasqua Recchia
2011
Glenn Lowry
Rossella Vodret
2010
Malcolm Rogers
Roberto Cecchi
2008
Anne Poulet
Nicola Spinosa
2007
Phillip de Montebello
Cristina Acidini