Tintoretto: Artist of Renaissance Venice

This exhibition is no longer on view at the National Gallery.

In celebration of the 500th anniversary of the birth of Jacopo Tintoretto (1518/1519–1594), the National Gallery of Art, Washington and the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia with the special cooperation of the Gallerie dell’Accademia, have organized a major exhibition on the Venetian master. As the first retrospective of the artist in North America, the exhibition includes many significant international loans traveling to the U.S. for the first time. The exhibition features nearly 50 paintings and more than a dozen works on paper spanning the artist’s entire career and ranging from regal portraits of Venetian aristocracy to religious and mythological narrative scenes.

The exhibition curators are Tintoretto experts Robert Echols, independent scholar, and Frederick Ilchman, chair of the Art of Europe department and Mrs. Russell W. Baker Curator of Paintings at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. While Tintoretto was considered one of the “Big Three” 16th-century Venetian painters alongside Titian and Paolo Veronese during his lifetime and in the succeeding centuries, works by Tintoretto’s assistants and followers have frequently been misattributed to the master. Echols and Ilchman are widely responsible for a new and more accurate understanding of Tintoretto’s oeuvre and chronology, first explored in the Museo del Prado’s Tintoretto exhibition in 2007. A fully illustrated catalog accompanying the exhibition, published in English and Italian, includes a range of essays by the curators and other leading scholars as well as new research and scientific studies of Tintoretto’s work.

previous slides

Tintoretto: Artist of Renaissance Venice

Jacopo Tintoretto, Venus and Mars Surprised by Vulcan, c. 1545/1546, oil on canvas, Alte Pinakothek, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich. Photo © Blauel Gnamm – ARTOTHEK

Tintoretto: Artist of Renaissance Venice

Jacopo Tintoretto, The Creation of the Animals, 1550/by 1553, oil on canvas, Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice

Tintoretto: Artist of Renaissance Venice

Jacopo Tintoretto, Saint George and the Dragon, c. 1553, oil on canvas, The National Gallery, London. Holwell Carr Bequest, 1831. © The National Gallery, London.

Tintoretto: Artist of Renaissance Venice

Jacopo Tintoretto, The Deposition of Christ, c. 1562, oil on canvas, Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice

Tintoretto: Artist of Renaissance Venice

Jacopo Tintoretto, The Last Supper, c. 1563/1564, oil on canvas, Church of San Trovaso, Venice

Tintoretto: Artist of Renaissance Venice

Jacopo Tintoretto, The Madonna of the Treasurers, 1567, oil on canvas, Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice. © Scala/Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali / Art Resource, NY

Tintoretto: Artist of Renaissance Venice

Jacopo Tintoretto, The Origin of the Milky Way, c. 1577/1579, oil on canvas, The National Gallery, London. Bought, 1890. © The National Gallery, London.

Tintoretto: Artist of Renaissance Venice

Jacopo Tintoretto, The Forge of Vulcan, 1578, oil on canvas, Palazzo Ducale, Venice. © Photo Archive – Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia

Tintoretto: Artist of Renaissance Venice

Jacopo Tintoretto, The Wedding of Ariadne and Bacchus, 1578, oil on canvas, Palazzo Ducale, Venice. © Photo Archive – Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia

Tintoretto: Artist of Renaissance Venice

Jacopo Tintoretto, The Apparition of the Virgin to Saint Jerome, c. 1580, oil on canvas, Sala di Lettura, Ateneo Veneto, Venice

Tintoretto: Artist of Renaissance Venice

Jacopo Tintoretto, The Virgin Mary Reading, c. 1582/1583, oil on canvas, Scuola Grande Arciconfraternita di San Rocco, Venice

Tintoretto: Artist of Renaissance Venice

Jacopo Tintoretto, Paradiso (modello), c. 1583, oil on canvas, Museo Thyssen‑Bornemisza, Madrid. © Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Tintoretto: Artist of Renaissance Venice

Jacopo Tintoretto, Self‑Portrait, c. 1588, oil on canvas, Musée du Louvre, Paris, Département des Peintures. © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY, Jean Gilles-Berizzi

next slides

Organization: Organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia with the special collaboration of the Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice.

Sponsors: The exhibition is made possible in part by The Exhibition Circle of the National Gallery of Art.

Save Venice provided significant funding for conservation in support of the exhibition.

The exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

Passes: Admission is always free and passes are not required.

Attendance: 195,427

Catalog: Tintoretto: Artist of Renaissance Venice. Edited by Robert Echols and Frederick Ilchman. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 2018

Other venues: Palazzo Ducale, Venice, September 7, 2018–January 6, 2019