Conversation - Botticelli Reimagined (2016)

The Berrick Saul Tree House, University of York, 18 April 2016

On 18 April 2016, the Department of History of Art hosted Botticelli Reimagined: A Conversation between Professor Elizabeth Prettejohn (University of York) and Dr Jeremy Melius (Tufts University), the author of The Invention of Botticelli, in which they discussed the exhibition then showing at the V&A: Botticelli Reimagined, for which Professor Prettejohn was a contributor to the catalogue.

Botticelli Reimagined explored ‘the variety of ways artists and designers from the Pre-Raphaelites to the present have responded to the artistic legacy of Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510), assembling 150 works from around the world. Botticelli is now celebrated as one of the greatest artists of all time, but was largely forgotten after his death until his work was progressively rediscovered in the 19th century.’ The exhibition aroused a great deal of debate and in this session Dr Melius and Professor Prettejohn focused on the implications of the exhibition, and on its critics.

Main image: Cover detail from exhibition catalogue 'Botticelli Reimagined' (V&A, 2016) showing 'Details of Renaissance Paintings (Sandro Botticelli, Birth of Venus, 1482)' (detail) by Andy Warhol, acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen (1984)

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