Haven’t been to the museum in a while? Some of the oldest works in the collection are back out on view in a redesigned gallery. Samuel H. Kress founded a chain of five-and-ten-cent stores that made him a fortune. There was even one in downtown Athens, and you can see remnants of it in the architecture at 153 Clayton Street. Kress began collecting art and established a foundation to donate works by European artists from his collection to American public museums, including paintings, sculptures and furniture. His aim was to share these powerful and historic works of art with everyday Americans.
In 1961, the Georgia Museum received a Kress Study Collection of Italian Renaissance and baroque paintings. 11 of them are now on display in the museum’s permanent collection wing alongside new acquisitions and a couple of long-term loans from the Parker Foundation. An oil-on-copper painting from the studio of woman artist Lavinia Fontana and some fine maiolica pottery are highlights.
Katherine Rabogliatti, a doctoral student at the University of Maryland who studies early modern Italian art, worked under the direction of Nelda Damiano, the museum’s Pierre Daura Curator of European Art, to help with the reinstallation of the gallery.
Rabogliatti said her experience writing labels and wall text helped her refine her ability to speak to a variety of viewers about Italian Renaissance art and society. She hopes that the new gallery "captures viewers’ attention and gives them a meaningful experience with the past."