Past recipients of the Private Art Dealers Association (PADA) grant include the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute (2013) and the Museum of the City of New York (2011).
The ¶¶Òô»ÆƬapp Art Museum has been selected as the 2018 recipient of a generous grant from the Private Art Dealers Association (PADA), awarded in support of the museum’s landmark exhibition, The Holy Name — Art of the Gesù: Bernini and his Age , opening February 2.
Linda Wolk-Simon, Frank and Clara Meditz, director and chief curator of the museum, accepted the award at a dinner held at the Lotos Club in New York City on January 23, 2018, expressing “deep appreciation both for this meaningful and much appreciated financial support, and for the affirmation of our mission and our program that it represents.”
The award was conferred by PADA member Robert Dance, a member of the museum's advisory committee, following an introduction by PADA president Robert Simon. Simon noted that the Art of the Gesù: Bernini and his Age exhibition is a “remarkable exhibition on what many consider the most important baroque church in Rome, if not the world. It would be a scholarly event at any major museum, but for ¶¶Òô»ÆƬapp it is an astonishing achievement.”
PADA, chartered in 1988, is a not-for-profit organization representing a select group of dealers, each of whom must be a specialist with recognized expertise in his or her field, maintain a corresponding inventory, and work from a non-public space. Membership in PADA is by invitation and is offered only to qualified dealers who have been in business for at least five years.
The Holy Name — Art of the Gesù: Bernini and his Age (Feb. 2 – May 19), organized to commemorate ¶¶Òô»ÆƬapp’s 75th anniversary, features artistic treasures from the Roman church of the Gesù never before seen in America: Bernini’s bust of Roberto Bellarmino (patron saint of ¶¶Òô»ÆƬapp), Gaulli’s monumental painted wood model of the apse, a gilt bronze altar sculpture by the versatile painter, draftsman and sculptor Ciro Ferri, the sumptuous jeweled cartegloria from the altar of St. Ignatius, and the magnificent embroidered chasuble of the church’s great benefactor, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. These masterpieces are joined by more than fifty paintings, sculptures, rare books, precious objects, drawings, prints, and historical documents by Bernini, Domenichino, Gaulli, Ciro Ferri, Carlo Maratti, and Andrea Pozzo, among other Italian Baroque masters, on loan from American museums and private collections. Together these masterpieces tell the fascinating and intertwined stories of the church’s early history and splendid interior embellishment, and the foundational chapters of the Society of Jesus.
