Otto Naumann and Robert Simon jointly announce that their exhibition “In Light of Venice,” a selection of important Venetian paintings of the Renaissance, Baroque, and Rococo periods. More than thirty works of art, many never before publicly exhibited, will be on view for this milestone event. A portion of the proceeds of sales will benefit the David Rosand Tribute Fund at Columbia University, which was formed last year establishing a Professorship in Italian Renaissance Art History in David Rosand’s honor, as well as to fund other programs important to Venetian studies and to the teaching of art history. These include support for Casa Muraro, Columbia’s house and study center in Venice, Italy that Professor Rosand first conceived and developed.
Both Naumann and Simon studied art history at Columbia and have continued their scholarly work while operating their eponymous art galleries devoted to Old Master paintings. Simon notes that with the changing focus of academic art history, support is needed to maintain the teaching of the crucial Renaissance period. “With the establishment of the Rosand Professorship in the Italian Renaissance, the subject is insured to be taught in perpetuity by distinguished scholars.”
Adds Naumann: “The exhibition demonstrates that important works by some of the greatest masters of the period are still on the market and many are certain to find homes in private collections, as well as in museums.”
While the exhibition will feature paintings from the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries, the focus will be on the 1500s, the period most studied by Professor Rosand in his many books and publications. Featured artists include Carpaccio, Giovanni Bellini, Palma il Vecchio, Titian, Tintoretto, Paolo Veronese, and Jacopo Bassano. Other sixteenth-century paintings to be exhibited are by Palma il Giovane, the subject of Professor Rosand’s doctoral dissertation, Bonifazio Veronese, and Paris Bordone. Later Venetian paintings include significant works by Amigoni, Bambini, Guardi, Diziani, and Bernardo Bellotto. All paintings will be for sale.
David Rosand received his undergraduate and graduate education at Columbia, earning his Ph.D. in 1965. He was on the faculty there from that time until his death in August 2014, when he held the title of Meyer Schapiro Professor of Art History Emeritus. His impact on students at Columbia and in the field of Venetian Studies has been enormous – through his teaching, his groundbreaking publications on Venetian art, and his studies on the making of art spanning all periods.
