In Florence, bringing the works of women artists out of the basement

December 22, 2017 5:55 PM

Eike Schmidt became director of the Uffizi Gallery Museum in Florence in 2015. A group of feminist art activists called the Guerilla Girls told him that many museums have the works of women artists, but they're kept in storage. Schmidt says once he got to the Uffizi, he discovered “that we are the museum with the largest collection of works of arts by women before the 19th century.” He set to work getting as many of these paintings out of storage as possible.

The Guerilla Girls previously on MeFi.

posted by DirtyOldTown (5 comments total)

I knew the work had to be out there somewhere!
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:42 PM on December 22, 2017

Excellent! This is a step in the right direction.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 9:08 PM on December 22, 2017

Schmidt has been doing great work since he was appointed, about a couple years ago - to some uproar caused by the fact that according to some, the director of one of the most prestigious italian galleries would have to be an italian. Too bad he's leaving town in a couple years to go direct Vienna's KHM.
posted by _dario at 6:50 AM on December 23, 2017

Some years ago, the Pompidou had an exhibition named Elles, for which they replaced almost all of their main collection (excepting a few famous items like Duchamp's urinal) with examples of women artists of note from throughout the 20th century's art movements. It worked quite well, though they did say that it required the acquisition power of an institution of the Pompidou's calibre to achieve this.

That's also where I discovered the Swiss video artist Pipilotti Rist, which I'm grateful for.
posted by acb at 8:09 AM on December 23, 2017 [3 favorites]

It's been said here before, but if Artemisia Gentileschi's version of Judith Slaying Holofernes (as compared to the work of her male peers, like Caravaggio) is any indication, we've been missing a lot.
posted by kneecapped at 9:13 AM on December 23, 2017 [12 favorites]