Manga meets Old Masters at Uffizi
The director of Italy’s most renowned art gallery has teamed up with Europe’s largest comic book festival in an unusual marriage of high and pop art.
Professor Eike Schmidt, the maverick German art historian who has been the director of the Uffizi Gallery since 2015, has agreed to throw open the hallowed spaces of the gallery in Florence to works provided by the Lucca Comics and Games convention, while some of the museum’s famed collection is to travel the other way.
The move is one of a series of initiatives by Schmidt that aims to attract a younger and less traditional audience to the treasures of
Botticelli, Michelangelo and Caravaggio housed in the 500-yearold institution.
A recently acquired painting by 18th-century artist Bernardino Nocchi will be lent to Lucca Comics and Games for its annual festival. The occasion normally draws several hundred thousand fans to the Tuscan city. This year it will be taking place online because of the pandemic.
Next year the artworks will be moving in the opposite direction, with the Uffizi hosting an exhibition of some works selected by Lucca Comics.
Schmidt said the Uffizi had already taken part in an initiative in which cartoonists set their stories in 20 of Italy’s most important museums.
‘‘Walt Disney and the manga artist Osamu Tezuka were inspired by classical painting, while Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol reflected cartoon art in their work,’’ he said.
‘‘After more than 50 years of mutual influence, the time has come to open up institutionally and celebrate that.
‘‘We need to break down barriers that should have been broken down before.’’
Schmidt, who said he enjoyed Asterix cartoons as a child, is no stranger to controversy.
He has hosted visits to the museum by musicians Patti Smith and Elton John, as well as Italian social media influencer Chiara Ferragni, to try to change the Uffizi’s stuffy image.