John Witty lecturing on the Santa Chiara Polyptych for a captive international audience on September 29, 2021.
Pratt in Venice was pleased to host a public lecture:
Paolo Veneziano and Santa Chiara: Representing Devotional Experience for a Fourteenth-Century Venetian Convent
John C. Witty III
Virtual via Zoom
Wednesday, September 29, 2021, 5:30 — 6:30 PM EST
Pratt in Venice studies the Santa Chiara Polyptych annually at the Gallerie dell’Accademia in the context of the history of Venetian painting and materials and techniques of Venetian art. In this special lecture, art historian John Witty illuminated this masterpiece in the context of its fourteenth-century Franciscan convent.
The work of the fourteenth-century master Paolo Veneziano is receiving renewed attention. The Santa Chiara Polyptych is currently undergoing a Save Venice, Inc.-sponsored conservation campaign. He is the subject of the exhibition Paolo Veneziano: Art & Devotion in 14th-Century Venice which was on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, through October 3, 2021. The exhibition featured the reconstruction of a devotional triptych and works in a variety of media that situated Paolo Veneziano’s art in the multicultural context of fourteenth-century Venice.
John C. Witty III specializes in the visual culture of trecento Venice and is a specialist of the work of Paolo Veneziano. He was the 2018–2020 Anne L. Poulet Fellow at the Frick Collection. This work directly led to the publication in 2021 of Paolo Veneziano: Art & Devotion in 14th–Century Venice, co-authored with Laura Llewellyn, which accompanied the Getty Museum international loan exhibition of the same name. Witty is a Ph.D. candidate in art history at Emory University.
Pratt in Venice thanks John Witty for the stimulating talk, and for all in attendance!
Pratt in Venice examining the Santa Chiara Polyptych by Paolo Veneziano in the Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice, 2019. (photo: Joseph Kopta)
John Witty at the Gallerie dell’Accademia (photo courtesy of the author)
