The focus of this exhibition is the Spencer’s small, but important, Giorgio Vasari painting on panel depicting Christ Carrying the Cross (circa 1554-64). Best known as the author of the Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (1550, 1568)—a compilation of artist biographies that was among the first of its kind—Vasari was also a successful painter and architect. The exhibition will celebrate and investigate the place the Christ Carrying the Cross occupies within his career and sixteenth-century Florentine and Roman court culture. Additionally, it will bring together the painted and printed images that inspired the panel, while also exploring Vasari’s relationship with Michelangelo. Capitalizing on the Spencer Museum’s rich collection of early modern religious art, the exhibition will place the Christ Carrying the Cross within its visual context by featuring works in a variety of media that depict Christ carrying the cross and his crucifixion. In addition to those objects and images, a number of rare, printed books from the University of Kansas’ Spencer Research Library—including a copy of the first edition of Vasari’s Lives—and loans from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, and the Bob Jones University Museum & Gallery will underscore the significance of a local treasure for the first time since it entered the University of Kansas’ art collection in 1953.
Giorgio Vasari & Court Culture in Late Renaissance Italy is made possible by the generous support of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and the Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne, and is curated by Sally J. Cornelison, Associate Professor of Italian Renaissance Art in KU’s Kress Foundation Department of Art History, with assistance from Susan Earle, Spencer Museum of Art Curator of European & American Art.