Opening Reception for The Holy Name. Art of the Gesù: Bernini and his Age – FUAM

The Holy Name. Art of the Gesù: Bernini and his Age will be on view at the Fairfield University Art Museum from February 2 – May 19, 2018; an Opening Reception will take place on Thursday, February 1, at 6:00 p.m. in the Fairfield University Art Museum, Bellarmine Hall. The exhibition and reception are free and open to the public.

This landmark international loan exhibition brings together artistic masterpieces from the Church of the Gesù never before seen in America and a dazzling group of paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, rare books, and decorative arts from American museums and private collections. Together these glorious works tell the fascinating stories of the foundation of the Society of Jesus in Rome and the long road to erect their new church, the Gesù, which houses some of the most iconic masterpieces of Italian Baroque art; the creation a new repertoire of images and subjects to celebrate the order’s new saints Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier; the gifted artists who realized the Jesuits’ vision and ambitions; and the powerful personalities whose wealth and authority made it all possible. The star of this extraordinary presentation is the great Italian baroque sculptor and architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini, whose marble portrait bust of Cardinal Roberto Bellarmino from the Gesù is the highlight of the exhibition.

The exhibition is organized in celebration of Fairfield University’s 75th anniversary and is complemented by a rich array of programs, lectures and special events, all free and open to the public.

Made possible through the collaboration of the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College; the Burns Library, Boston College; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Cleveland Museum of Art; the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; the Getty Research Institute; the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Morgan Library & Museum; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the New York Public Library; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Princeton University Art Museum; the Yale University Art Gallery; and several private collectors.

Generous support for the exhibition, publication and related programs has been provided in part by the Center for Catholic Studies, Fairfield University, The Samuel H. Kress Foundation, The Robert Lehman Foundation, The Robert and Mercedes Eichholz Foundation, Vanderbilt University, the Dianne Modestini Charitable Trust, Christie’s, New York, and a number of private benefactors.

Image: Giovanni Battista Gaulli, The Adoration of the Lamb (Modello for the Apse Fresco in the Gesù, Rome) (detail), ca. 1680. Copyright The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.