James Ford Bell Curator of Decorative Arts and Sculpture
Decorative Arts, Textiles and Sculpture Department Head
Department: Decorative Arts, Textiles and Sculpture

Current MIA Projects

• "A Handsome Cupboard of Plate: Early American Silver in the Cahn Collection," through March 24, 2013
• "Supper with Shakespeare: The Evolution of English Banqueting," through March 31, 2013
• “The Hours of Day and Night: A Rediscovered Series of Bronze Reliefs by Pietro Cipriani”
• Exhibition on the Medici collection of ivories, to open in Florence in 2013
  
• “Paul Manship (1885–1966)”
  
• “Sculpture in the Age of Impressionism”

Education

PhD, Ruprecht-Karls University, Heidelberg

Background/Work History

• Minneapolis Institute of Arts since 2009
• Director and Department Head, European Sculpture and Works of Art, Sotheby’s, London
• Associate Curator, Department of Sculpture and Decorative Arts, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
• Research Curator, Sculpture Department, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
• Research Associate to the Dean, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
• Assistant to the Director and Fellow, Kunsthistorisches Institut, Florence

Specialty/Area of Interest

European sculpture, especially Italian, Austrian, German and Netherlandish sculpture of the Renaissance, Baroque and Neoclassicism; reception of Graeco-Roman art in the early modern age; ivory and bronze sculpture; history of collecting.

Honors and Professional Associations

• Member of the editorial board of the Sculpture Journal, London
• Member of the Renaissance Society of America (RSA), the Low Countries Sculpture Society (LCS), the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) and the International Committee of Museums (ICOM)
• Member of an interdisciplinary research network on Medici Women as Cultural Mediators, 1533–1743, based at the Bibliotheca Hertziana, Rome, and financed by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Bonn, 2004–8
• Fondazione Galileo Galileo, Pisa, Premio Nicoletta Quinto, 1997, for the best contribution to the humanities in Italy by an author under 30 years of age
• Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst Fellow, Kunsthistorisches Institut, Florence, 1994–95
• Erasmus Fellow, Università degli studi, Bologna, 1991–92

Selected Exhibitions and Projects

• “Saint Paul the Hermit: Restoration and Rediscovery,” 2012
• “Beauty and Power: Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes from the Peter Marino Collection,” 2011
• “Lost Wax, Found Sculpture,” 2011
• ”Modigliani Scultore,” Rovereto, MART, member of the scholarly board and catalogue author
• “Fra Jacopo della Quercia e Donatello: Gli arti a Siena nel primo Rinascimento,” Siena, Santa Maria della Scala, 2010, member of the scholarly board
• “Cast in Bronze: French Sculpture from the Renaissance to the Revolution,” Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2009, co-curator for the Getty venue
• “The Getty Commodus: Ancient Portraits and Modern Copies,” Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2008–9, co-curator
• “The Color of Life: Polychromy in Sculpture from Antiquity to the Present,” Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2008, co-curator and catalogue author
• “Pietro Tacca: Carrara, la Toscana, le grandi corti europee,” Carrara, Centro Internazionale delle Arti Plastiche, 2007, member of the scholarly board and catalogue author
• “Il potere, le arti, la guerra: Lo splendore dei Malatesta,” Rimini, Castel Sismondo, 2001, member of the scholarly board and catalogue author

Selected Publications

• Author, "Mäzene auf der Spuren der Antike," Damals (March 2013)
• Author, Das Elfenbein der Medici: Bildhauerarbeiten für den Florentiner Hof von Giovanni Antonio Gualterio, dem Furienmeister, Leonhard Kern, Johann Balthasar Stockamer, Melchior Barthel, Lorenz Rues, Francis van Bossuit, Balthasar Griessmann und Balthasar Permoser (München: Hirmer, 2012)
• Contributor, Bronze (London, 2012)
• Contributor, Sokrovisca Dinastii Medici (Moscow: 2011)
• Contributor, L'acqua, la pietra, il fuoco: Bartolomeo Ammannati Scultore (Florence: 2011)
• Author, Beauty Bound and Power Unleashed: Jacobus Agnesius and the Quest for Expression in Baroque Ivory Sculpture (New York: 2011)
• Contributor, Vasari, gli Uffizi e il Duca (Florence: 2011)
• Contributor, Il mercante, l'ospedale, i fanciulli (Florence: 2010)
• Contributor, Modigliani scultore (Milan: 2010)
• Contributor, Trésor des Médicis (Paris: 2010)
• Author, Fruits of Desire: A Seventeenth-Century Carved Ivory Cup (Los Angeles: 2009)
• Contributor, From Raphael to Carracci: The Art of Papal Rome (Ottawa: 2009)
• Co-editor and contributor, Collecting Sculpture in Early Modern Europe (Washington, D.C.: 2008)
• Co-editor and contributor, The Color of Life: Polychromy in Sculpture from Antiquity to the Present (Los Angeles: 2008)
• Contributor, Andrea Riccio: Renaissance Master of Bronze (New York: 2008)
• Contributor, Tintoretto (Madrid: 2007)
• Author, Paul Heermann (1673–1732), Meister der Barockskulptur in Böhmen und Sachsen: Neue Aspekte seines Schaffens (Munich: 2005)
• Contributor, Maria de’ Medici (1573–1642): Una principessa fiorentina sul trono di Francia (Florence: 2005)
• Contributor, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and the Renaissance in Florence, exhibition catalogue (Ottawa: 2005)
• Author, “Furor und imitatio: Visuelle Topoi in den Laokoon-Parodien Rosso Fiorentinos und Tizians,” Visuelle Topoi: Erfindung und tradiertes Wissen in der italienischen Renaissance (Munich and Berlin: 2003)
• Contributor, Palazzo Pitti: La reggia rivelata (Florence: 2003)
• Contributor, The Medici, Michelangelo, and the Art of Late Renaissance Florence (Florence, Chicago and Detroit: 2002)
• Contributor, Il gotico nelle Alpi (Trento: 2002)
• Contributor, Leonardo e il mito di Leda: Modelli, memorie e metamorfosi di un’invenzione (Vinci: 2001)
• Author, “Treviri: Oreficeria,” Enciclopedia dell’arte medievale, vol. 9, 2000
• Contributor, Giovinezza di Michelangelo (Florence: 1999)
• Contributor, Magnificenza alla corte dei Medici: Arte a Firenze alla fine del Cinquecento (Florence: 1997)
• Contributor, Vittoria Colonna: Dichterin und Muse Michelangelos (Vienna: 1997)
• Author, “Paul Heermann’s ivoren Samson en twee Filistijnen naar Michelangelo,” Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum, vol. 45, 1997
• Author, “Die Überlieferung von Michelangelos verlorenem Samson-Modell,” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, vol. 40, 1996

Contact

eschmidt@artsmia.org

January 2013