After being postponed in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic, Pratt in Venice is again underway this summer. From June 8 to July 20, undergraduate and graduate students are studying art and its history in the famed Italian cultural destination. The program, which celebrated its 35th anniversary in 2019, is one of Pratt’s longest-running summer programs, which include studies abroad in locations ranging from Rome to Scandinavia.

Pratt in Venice classes including painting, drawing and printmaking, Materials and Techniques of Venetian Art, and Art History of Venice engage students with the practice of art through the area’s heritage, from historic sites to the current Venice Biennale exhibition. For instance, students in the Materials and Techniques of Venetian Art class led by Professor of History of Art and Design Diana Gisolfi visited the basilica of SS. Maria e Donato on the island of Murano to learn how the nonprofit Save Venice Inc. is supporting a conservation campaign, even climbing scaffolding with conservators to examine the frescoes and mosaics up close.

Students in a painting class led by Michael Brennan, adjunct associate professor-CCE of fine arts, have experimented with color studies in response to light around the city and its canals, while Joseph Kopta, visiting assistant professor for Pratt in Venice, introduced students to the late antique and Byzantine monuments of Ravenna, where they discussed the influence of the ancient city on Venetian art.

See some of the photographs from this summer’s Pratt in Venice below, such as Pratt President Frances Bronet’s visit to the program’s sites. This included the main site at the Università Internazionale dell’Arte and the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica print workshop by the Grand Canal where Fay Ku, visiting assistant professor of fine arts, is working with students on a variety of printmaking techniques. Follow @prattinvenice for ongoing updates from this summer’s program.