Feature:Trailblazer, Rule Breaker
Calliope Arts
Documenting women’s stories, today and through the centuries.
A project for the ‘restoration’ of women’s creative achievements,
through research, awareness, conservation and cultural exchange.
Calliope Arts also raises awareness through Restoration Conversations livestream broadcasts and bi-annual magazine.
About
Find out about our programmes and guiding principles as the Restoration Conversation
project makes a start.
What to watch...
On April 8, 2024, join presenter Linda Falcone on location in Forlì and meet nineteenth-century artists Marie Spartali Stillman, Evelyn Pickering De Morgan and Elizabeth Siddal, during our online broadcast of the exhibition ‘Pre-Raphaelites: Modern Renaissance’, with co-curator Peter Trippi. As art models, these women gave their faces to the larger-than-life characters of world literature, captured on canvas by the Brotherhood’s original artists. Yet their own paintings depicted the same dreamscapes as their male counterparts: think chivalry and Botticelli’s palette, think Royal-Academy rebellion and angels on high… and then imagine 350 artworks that encompass fifteenth-century Florence, and England’s evocative artistic response to the evils of the Industrial age.
Our WINTER 2023 issue is now 'out' in its digital version.
Press the cover to read the magazine online.
A new book..
Palace Women: Creators of Culture in Florence. Fifteen women photographers and eight contemporary artisans rediscover female influencers in their Tuscan palaces, villas or garden oases and produce artisanal works or pictures celebrating their untold legacies. From the former convent of San Francesco di Paola, to the once-hunting lodge of Isabella de’ Medici, this keepsake volume explores multiple venues, where ‘palace women’ – from the sixteenth century to the present day – have carved their place in history as creators of culture, giving new meaning to the ever-relevant aspiration: ‘a room of one’s own’. For more.
Ongoing...
Exhibition: Women of the Sky
From Muses to Scientist
Enjoy this exhibition conceived by Museo Galileo and co-organized with the Central National Library of Florence, which focuses on the role of women in astronomical research and on the female images that most frequently feature in representations of the cosmos from the Renaissance to the early twentieth century. The National Library’s texts are presented in dialogue with scientific instruments from the Museo Galileo and private collections, and in conversation with astronomy-inspired artwork. In fact, The Variables of the Swan—a series of seven monumental canvases by artist Ilaria Margutti inspired by Henrietta Swan Leavitt’s studies—are an integral part of the exhibition. Until June 8, 2024
Explore untold stories and tales of talent, in history and today.
Restoration Conversations is also the title of our bi-annual magazine. Whet your appetite with events and articles.
Header Photo: Artemisia UpClose banner
Three main photos (left to right) by: Olga Makarova, Alinari Foundation for Photography Archives, Marco Badiani