Venice Academy of Fine Arts

As noted by Elena Bassi in her seminal study of the Venetian institution, on 24 September 1750 the Venetian Senate granted the Reformers of the University of Padua, who oversaw all public cultural institutions, a room within the Magistracy of Flour. This space was intended to host young people working under the guidance of recognised masters, allowing them to develop practical skills in drawing, figure studies, portraiture, landscape, and sculpture.

Thus began the history of one of Italy’s oldest academies, whose statutes were formalised in 1756 and whose first president was Giambattista Tiepolo. The teaching of perspective and architecture was established in 1768 through a course that was subsequently renewed on an annual basis.

In 1807, the Veneta Academia di Pittura, Scultura e Architettura was reformed into the Royal Academy of Fine Arts and transferred to the premises of the former convent, church, and school of Santa Maria della Carità, which were no longer used for religious purposes. A collection of works by the masters of the past was soon attached to the School. Created by the teachers themselves and enriched through bequests and donations that became increasingly numerous, it formed the nucleus of what is today the national museum known as the Gallerie dell’Accademia.

The collection was managed directly by the School, including its conservation and the restoration of the works, until 1879, when the museum and educational functions were separated, resulting in the establishment of two distinct institutions. Nevertheless, they continued to coexist, at least in terms of physical space, until the beginning of the present century. At that point, the Museum’s need for additional exhibition space, together with the growing number of students and the increasingly diverse educational offer, led to the relocation of the School to the Sansovino complex of the former Ospedale degli Incurabili, an approximately 8,000-square-metre building that was fully restored. It is situated in an area of Venice that hosts some of the most important international institutions dedicated to contemporary art: the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, the contemporary art centre at Punta della Dogana, and the Vedova Museum.

The collection was managed directly by the School, including its conservation and the restoration of the works, until 1879, when the museum and educational functions were separated, resulting in the establishment of two distinct institutions. Nevertheless, they continued to coexist, at least in terms of physical space, until the beginning of the present century. At that point, the Museum’s need for additional exhibition space, together with the growing number of students and the increasingly diverse educational offer, led to the relocation of the School to the Sansovino complex of the former Ospedale degli Incurabili, an approximately 8,000-square-metre building that was fully restored. It is situated in an area of Venice that hosts some of the most important international institutions dedicated to contemporary art: the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, the contemporary art centre at Punta della Dogana, and the Vedova Museum.

In line with the reform of the Academies introduced in 1999 and the establishment of the Higher Artistic and Musical Education sector (AFAM) within the Ministry of Education, Universities and Research (MIUR), the School of New Technologies for the Arts (NTA) was also established in Venice, alongside the programmes in Painting, Decoration, Sculpture, Printmaking, and Stage Design, all of which operate within the large sixteenth-century complex.

The School of New Technologies for the Arts is currently located on the island of Giudecca, where teaching facilities and audiovisual laboratories are equipped to support artistic research in the field of digital applications.
The Venetian institution also has at its disposal a new exhibition space, fully renovated, flexible, and equipped with innovative climate-control and lighting systems: Magazzino del Sale No. 3 (next to the Vedova Museum).

Thanks to a long-term agreement with the Municipality of Venice, the Academy has thus gained an additional logistical resource for promoting projects dedicated to contemporary arts at local, national, and international levels.

In 2011, on the occasion of the 53rd Venice Biennale, the Academy was entrusted with coordinating and producing the first, and to date only, national exhibition of the best works produced and selected by the State Academies of Fine Arts.

Among the artists of both the distant and more recent past who contributed to the institution are Giovanni Battista Piazzetta, Giambattista Tiepolo, Gaspare Diziani, Giovanni Maria Morlaiter, Giannantonio Selva, Antonio Canova, Francesco Hayez, Pompeo Marino Molmenti, Giacomo Favretto, Luigi Nono, Guglielmo Ciardi, Alessandro Milesi, Ettore Tito, Guido Cadorin, Giuseppe Cesetti, Bruno Saetti, Giovanni Giuliani, Virgilio Guidi, Arturo Martini, Alberto Viani, Carlo Scarpa, Afro Basaldella, Giuseppe Santomaso, Emilio Vedova, and Carmelo Zotti.