Dear Pratt in Venice Alumni/ae and Friends,

Pratt in Venice resumed on site in summer ’22! After 2020 and 2021 had to be cancelled due to Covid, we again found ourselves in La Bella Serinissima! Massimo welcomed us at Università Internazionale dell’Arte and Lorenzo greeted us at the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica. 23 students and five faculty (one serving as on-site assistant) enjoyed the narrow calli, the open campi, the splendid palaces and churches, the Biennale, the treasure-filled museums. On the vaporetti we traveled in mascherine, and we frowned at tourists who complained!

At UIA Michael Brennan’s students responded to Venice in watercolor, in oil, in oil pastels, in collage. At the Scuola Grafica Fay Ku led the students through a series of printmaking techniques, including monotype, drypoint, etching, collagraph. Most participants kept journals incorporating notations, sketches, watercolors, commentary, collages of such items as entrance tickets to the Accademia. Joe Kopta led the group on the visit to the island of Torcello, and later on an optional train-trip to Ravenna as well as to sites in the city. Diana Gisolfi’s Materials & Techniques students learned from Venetian conservators (in laboratory or site) about mosaics, frescoes, wood, tempera, and oil on varied surfaces, building strategies, and pigments. The full group enjoyed our traditional off-site visits: Padua for the Giotto Chapel, Donatello, Mantegna, and young Titian; the Castelfranco, Emo, Maser, Bassano pullman trip to study Giorgione, Veronese, and colleagues, Palladio villas, with the rustic meal overlooking Bassano.

Special events included Chairperson Jane South’s visit, and the visit of President Bronet with VP Daphne Halpern, her associate VP Jessica Tallman, VP Delmy Lendof and Dean Jorge Oliver with guests in late June. The president hosted an all-group tour of the lagoon on a traditional Venetian boat (bragozzo) with ecologist Jane da Mosto — a tour especially appropriate to this fragile site and to Pratt in Venice’s attention to Venice as a laboratory in sustainability.

The Pratt in Venice team is more convinced than ever of the importance of this program. We are again appealing to all our alumni/ae and to our many friends for contributions to the Pratt in Venice Scholarship Fund. In 2022, 13 of our participants won some scholarship assistance. In all cases these were partial; in most cases it was about a tenth of the tuition cost. We dearly hope to be able to better support excellent applicants and, recognizing all the worthy causes on earth, we still ask for your help. Experiencing the enchanting beauty and evident fragility of Venice is truly educational as the planet confronts climate change.

With every good wish,

Diana Gisolfi
Director, Pratt in Venice