A leading Italian art scholar has been appointed Senior Curator of Paintings at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, one of the museum's top posts.
Davide Gasparotto, who was born in Bassano del Grappa (Veneto) and currently serves as the director of the Galleria Estense in Modena, will join the Getty in late 2014.
Gasparotto studied History of Art and Classical Archaeology at the University of Pisa, and History of Art Criticism at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa. He spent 12 years as a curator and art historian at the National Gallery of Parma. He has been a visiting scholar at the National Gallery in Washington D.C. and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. He has been the director of the Galleria Estense in Modena for the last two years.
“I am thrilled to announce Dr. Gasparotto’s appointment as the Museum’s Senior Curator of Paintings,” said Timothy Potts, director of the J. Paul Getty Museum. “He is a leading figure in the field of Renaissance through 18th-century Italian painting and sculpture, while also having an exceptionally broad knowledge of European art in other periods and media. He will be an enormous asset to the Museum and the wider Getty.”
Gasparotto’s research interests include painting, sculpture and the decorative arts of the Renaissance, the rediscovery of classical antiquity between the Middle Ages and the 18th century, and the history of collecting, particularly in the Italian Renaissance. He has curated several major exhibitions and has published extensively on Tuscan, Venetian, Emilian and Lombard art from the 16th to the 18th centuries.
“I am thrilled to become part of the staff of the Getty Museum,” Gasparotto said. “I look forward to working with my new colleagues in the Department of Paintings on the Museum’s upcoming projects, sharing, as I do, the Getty's belief in the fundamental role of museum research in presenting engaging offerings to the broad public and scholarly community alike.”
