Introduction to the Exhibition: Piero di Cosimo: The Poetry of Painting in Renaissance Florence

Gretchen Hirschauer, associate curator of Italian and Spanish painting, National Gallery of Art; Dennis Geronimus, associate professor and chair of the department of art history, New York University; and Elizabeth Walmsley, paintings conservator, National Gallery of Art. The first major retrospective exhibition of paintings by the imaginative Italian Renaissance master Piero di Cosimo premiered at the National Gallery of Art on February 1, 2015. In honor of the opening, exhibition curators Gretchen A. Hirschauer and Dennis Geronimus along with conservator Elizabeth Walmsley present this introduction to Piero di Cosimo: The Poetry of Painting in Renaissance Florence. On view through May 3, 2015, the installation features 44 of the artist's most compelling paintings, including fanciful mythologies, powerful religious works (one on loan for the first time from the church in Italy for which it was created 500 years ago), and sensitive portraits. Several important paintings underwent conservation treatment before the exhibition, among them the National Gallery's Visitation altarpiece (c. 1489/1490).