Save Venice Inc.

Save Venice Inc. (SV) is a U.S. non-profit organization dedicated to the conservation of art and architecture and the preservation of cultural heritage sites in Venice, Italy. Headquartered in New York City, it has an office in Venice, an active chapter in Boston, and supporters across the United States and Europe.

Save Venice Inc. organizes special events, including annual masquerade balls, educational trips and lectures, and biennial galas in Venice, to raise funds and awareness for the preservation of Venetian art and architecture. Since its founding in December 1971, SV has restored more than 450 works of art and architecture in Venice.

History

Save Venice Inc. was established in the wake of the catastrophic flooding in Italy in November 1966, which particularly damaged Florence Florence and also Venice Venice. The immediate response was the Committee to Rescue Italian Art (CRIA), which brought together donors, art historians, art conservators, and others to conserve damaged and imperiled works of art, architecture, books and manuscripts. Although CRIA’s work was accomplished quickly, closing its New York office in 1971 and its Florentine office in 1973, the organization’s success had drawn the world’s attention to the fragility of Italian artistic treasures and encouraged many others to take up the cause.

Recognizing the devastation in Venice, Col. James A. Gray of the International Fund for Monuments (IFM) (now the World Monuments Fund) enlisted Professor John McAndrew of Wellesley College to coordinate administrative and academic assistance. In February 1969, the Venice Committee of the IFM began writing letters, organizing events, and raising money for Venice. By April, they had raised almost half a million dollars in cash, pledges, and donated art, and had founded chapters in Boston and California.

In December 1971, the organization changed its name and separated from the IFM to focus uniquely on the city of Venice. The founding members of SV were John McAndrew (1904-1978), Professor of Art History at Wellesley College; his wife, Betty Bartlett McAndrew (1906-1986); Sydney J. Freedberg (1914-1997), Chairman of the Department of Fine Art at Harvard University and later Chief Curator Emeritus of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; his wife Kathleen Wick; Eleanor Garvey (1918-2013), curator at Harvard’s Houghton Library; and lawyer Stuart Johnson.

Beginning as a volunteer organization, Save Venice relied heavily upon the personal friendships of the McAndrews, as well as the historic connections between Venice and Boston. All mailings were hand-addressed by volunteers, gathered around a members’ dining table at home; fundraising efforts included sales of art, particularly paintings and works on paper, many taken from the walls of the McAndrews’ or their friends’ houses.

Restoration projects ranged in scope and expense. Early conservation treatments could be as small as the repair of a damaged 15th-century map or as monumental as the restoration of Tintoretto’s huge Paradise in the Sala del Maggior Consiglio in the Palazzo Ducale (a canvas measuring 74 feet wide). Some altarpieces in churches and pictures in palaces had never been cleaned and were barely visible beneath layers of yellowed varnish, candle grease, and smoke. A related goal was to retain as much as possible of the original context of a work of art by keeping it in the place for which it was made, rather than transferring works to museums for safekeeping. Another major concern was to establish scientific laboratories for cleaning, restoration, and the instruction of these methods to new generations of conservators. As part of this, bursaries and scholarships were established for workmen, restorers, and scholars alike.

McAndrew, an architectural historian with a deep love for Venice, was the guiding spirit of Save Venice until his death in 1978. He was succeeded by Rollin van Nostrand (Bump) Hadley, the Director of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. By the late 1980s, the heart of the organization had moved from Boston to New York, and a professional staff was hired. Laurence Lovett was elected President of Save Venice in 1986. Realizing that the needs of Venice far-eclipsed available money, he hired Beatrice Guthrie, who had been enormously successful in raising funds for the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Soon her husband, Dr. Randolph Guthrie, a prominent plastic surgeon, joined the Board as Treasurer and eventually succeeded Lovett as President. Together, the Guthries rapidly transformed Save Venice, increasing its annual fund-raising more than one hundred times. The increased ambition of Save Venice Inc. was most evident in its 1987 decision to restore the entire church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli necessitating a dramatic upturn in funds required. This led to the development of the first multiday galas in Venice, a long-weekend format with educational components, social events, and a black-tie benefit dinner that continues to take place every two years and that has been taken up by many other organizations. Through these galas in Venice, benefit dinners in New York and elsewhere, trips and cruises, corporate sponsors, commercial endorsements, bequests, and a membership program, Save Venice has raised in some years as much for Venice as the two dozen other private committees devoted to Venice combined.

Presidents, Chairs, and Executive Directors

Presidents

  • Professor John McAndrew (1971 - 1973)
  • Rollin van N. Hadley (1974 - 1985)
  • Laurence D. Lovett (1986 - 1989)
  • Dr. Randolph H. Guthrie (1990 - 1996)
  • Paul F. Wallace (1998 - 2000)
  • John H. Dobkin (2001)
  • Beatrice Rossi-Landi (2003 - 2006)
  • Sarah Schulte (2007 - 2009)
  • Matthew White (2010)
  • Beatrice Rossi-Landi (2011 - 2016)
  • Richard J. Almeida (2016 - present)

Chairman of the Board

  • Professor John McAndrew (1975 - 1978)
  • Rollin van N. Hadley (1986-1988)
  • Laurence D. Lovett (1989 - 1997)
  • Randolph H. Guthrie (1997 - 2006)
  • Jesse Robert Lovejoy (2006 - 2010)
  • Matthew White (2010 - 2016)
  • Frederick Ilchman (2016 - present)

Executive Director

  • Bruce Duff Hooton (1973)
  • Beatrice H. Guthrie (1988 - 1998)
  • Tia Fuhrmann (1999 - 2001)
  • Michael John Dagon (2001 - 2002)
  • Beatrice H. Guthrie (2003 - 2005)
  • Elizabeth S. Makrauer (2006 - 2013)
  • Amy Gross (2013 - present)

Director, Venice Office

  • Lesa Marcello (1992 - 1997)
  • Melissa Conn (1998 - present)

Director, New York Office

  • Karen L. Marshall (1995 - 1998; 2002 -2011)

Major restorations

Restoration projects are selected once a year, after Board members gather in Venice to visit potential projects suggested by numerous parties — government agencies, museums, churches, academics, and friends. Decisions are made with guidance from the Project Committee, composed of a dozen art experts in the United States. Restorations are executed by trained conservators under the supervision of specialists in the Italian Superintendencies of Fine Arts and Monuments.

Save Venice has an average of thirty restorations in progress at any given time, including buildings, paintings, statuary, books, and archives. Scholarship is supported through fellowships, exhibitions, conferences, and summer internships. Other educational efforts include numerous publications and an annual lecture series in Venice, New York, Boston, and Los Angeles.

Among the largest projects have been:

Rosand Library & Study Center

The Rosand Library and Study Center (RLSC) was established in 2014 when David Rosand (1938-2014), professor of art history at Columbia University and Save Venice board member, bequeathed his library of some 4500 volumes to Save Venice. The collection includes a variety of rare books, along with offprints, dissertations, and journals. While the focus of the library is the art and history of Venice, with particular depth in the Venetian Renaissance, the collection ranges from Chinese calligraphy to Abstract Expressionism. Additionally, the library is supplemented by Save Venice’s restoration files, which document its more than four decades of conservation projects, as well as the photographic archives of restorations. The library is open to readers by appointment.

The establishment and organization of the library was headed by Mary E. Frank, then chair of the Save Venice Education Resources Committee, who oversaw the cataloguing of the books in New York and their move to Save Venice’s Venetian office in Palazzo Contarini Polignac.

On June 18, 2015, both local and international supporters joined Save Venice to commemorate the official inauguration of the RLSC.

Lecture series

Venice

The Rosand Library & Study Center holds monthly roundtable discussions, usually in Italian, that focus on the latest conservation projects of Save Venice and feature presentations and dialogue between art restorers and art historians.

New York

The New York Education & Enrichment Series organizes lectures throughout the year on Venetian art, history, and culture presented by art historians, conservators, curators, and artists. Lectures are often held at NYU’s Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò and the Italian Cultural Institute.

Boston

Typically held at the historic Chilton Club in Back Bay, the Boston Chapter maintains a series of three lectures, organized in the winter/spring, on topics related to Venetian history, art, architecture, or music, as well as an Annual General Meeting in the early autumn.

Events

Venice Gran Gala a Venezia

Held every other year in Venice, the four-day gala often takes as its theme an event associated with Venice, such as Carnival in February, or the Biennale in June, or Regatta Week in late August. The gala gives its guests an opportunity to experience the city of Venice at a special seasonal moment and also to see Save Venice’s restoration work first-hand.

New York Ballo in Maschera

The annual masked ball held in New York is a black-tie fundraising dinner that aims to recreate lavishly the spirit of Venice for an evening and promote the art, culture, and traditions of the city.[3] [4]

Boston

Past events in Boston include a costume ball and silent auction recreating the 1961 Festival del Cinema on the Lido (2006); a black-tie dinner followed by an Edwardian brunch, both celebrating Italian artistic inspiration, and held inside the historic Ames-Webster Mansion in Back Bay (2010); a “Library at Night” fundraiser at The Boston Public Library (2013); a celebration of Tony Duquette and Elsie de Wolfe with a lecture and book signing of “The Walk to Elsie’s” with authors Hutton Wilkinson and M. Flynn Kuhnert (2015); and a masked ball at the Algonquin Club in Back Bay (2016).[5]

Young Friends

The mission of the Young Friends of Save Venice is to involve young supporters (up to 39 years old) in the preservation of Venice’s artistic patrimony. The Young Friends group in New York have played a major role in the planning of the annual ball in New York, and have raised more than five million dollars for restorations in Venice. In Boston since the late -1990s, the Young Friends of Save Venice brought in a cohort of much-needed younger members and raised large sums through a series of Carnevale and other themed parties in the winter.

Publications

  • Melissa Conn and David Rosand, eds., Save Venice Inc: Four Decades of Restoration in Venice (Venice and New York: Save Venice Inc., 2011).
  • Giulio Manieri Elia, ed., Masterpieces Restored: the Gallerie dell'Accademia and Save Venice Inc. (Venice: Marsilio Editori, 2010).
  • Peter Fergusson, “Save Venice: The First Forty Years” (privately printed for the Boston Chapter of Save Venice, 2009).

References

  1. ↑ "Save Venice Inc. funds the restoration of Titian's 'Assumption of the Virgin'". Art Daily. Jose Villarreal.
  2. ↑ "Save Venice Celebrates 500 Years of Jacopo Tintoretto". Save Venice Inc.
  3. ↑ Suhrawardi, Rebecca. "Is Save Venice The New Met Ball?". Forbes.
  4. ↑ Ward, Maria. "Sienna Miller, Lauren Santo Domingo, and More at the Save Venice Masked Ball". Vogue.
  5. ↑ "Boston Chapter Events". Save Venice Inc.

Further reading

  • John Berendt, The City of Falling Angels (New York: Penguin, 2005), 287-330.
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