Save Venice Inc. is a U.S. non-profit organization dedicated to the conservation of art and architecture and the preservation of cultural heritage sites in Venice, Italy. Headquartered in New York City, it has an office in Venice, a chapter in Boston, and supporters across the United States and Europe.
From the outset, the organization's mission has been to provide financial support for conservation treatments of Venice's physical heritage, particularly monuments and important examples of painting, sculpture, and other visual arts. As the organization grew, a secondary emphasis arose in educating the public about Venetian art and history and in training future conservation professionals.
As an organization that primarily funds art restoration and promotes the cultural patrimony of Venice, Save Venice does not take a public position on engineering solutions to acqua alta, such as the MOSE project, or the challenges of overtourism and declining local population. Recent preventive conservation work supported by Save Venice's Immediate Response Fund, created in the aftermath of the November 2019 floods, has however helped many public buildings, including churches, museums, synagogues, and scuole, better prepare for future floods and other disasters.
Save Venice organizes ticketed events, including annual masquerade balls, educational trips and lectures, and biennial galas in Venice to raise funds and awareness for the preservation of Venetian art and architecture. Since its founding in October 1971, Save Venice has sponsored more than 550 restorations of art and architecture in Venice, comprising nearly 2,000 individual artworks.
History
Founding (1966–1971)
Save Venice Inc. (SVI) was established in the wake of catastrophic storms and flooding in Italy in November 1966, which particularly damaged Florence and Venice. The initial efforts were led by the committee to Rescue Italian Art (CRIA), which brought together donors, art historians, art conservators, and others to conserve damaged and imperiled works of art, architecture, books and manuscripts. Although that committee's work was accomplished quickly, closing its New York office in 1971 and its Florence office by 1973, the organization's efforts had drawn the world's attention to the fragility of Italian artistic treasures and encouraged many others to take up the cause. Recognizing the devastation in Venice, Col. James A. Gray of the International Fund for Monuments (IFM, now the World Monuments Fund) enlisted Professor John McAndrew (1904–1978) an architectural historian at Wellesley College who was particularly concerned about the imminent collapse of historic structures and the decay of paintings and sculptures affected by the floodwater. In February 1969, the Venice Committee of the International Fund for Monuments began writing letters and organizing events to raise money across the United States in order to sponsor restorations of Venetian sites that had suffered artistic damage. Early conservation projects included the Ca'd'Oro and the Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista. Similar organizations included the Italian Art and Archives Rescue Fund (IAARF, now Venice in Peril) and Italia Nostra. While some groups responding to damage caused by the 1966 floods ceased operation within a few years, such as CRIA, or turned their focus away from Venice, both Save Venice and Venice in Peril, each founded in 1971, remain active nearly a half-century later.
In October 1971, members of the Venice Committee separated from the IFM and created a new organization focused solely on Venice: Save Venice Inc. (SVI). John McAndrew and his wife, Betty Bartlett McAndrew (1906–1986), were joined by art historian Sydney J. Freedberg (1914–1997) of the Fine Arts Department at Harvard University and later Chief Curator of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.Mardges Bacon, John McAndrew's Modernist Vision: From the Vassar College Art Library to the Museum of Modern Art in New York (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2018), pp. 174. With the assistance of several friends in Boston, they drew up by-laws, created a newsletter, organized cocktail parties and galas to raise funds, and selected monuments and paintings in Venice to be restored. Chapters of SVI were established in Boston, New York, New Orleans, and Washington D.C.; each of them chose restoration projects and raised funds independently. Save Venice is today one of about two dozen members of the International Private Committees for the Safeguarding of Venice, and usually the largest in annual budget.
Early years (1971–1985)
John McAndrew led the organization until his retirement as SVI President in 1974 and his death in 1978. He was succeeded by Rollin van Nostrand (Bump) Hadley, the director of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. In an effort to increase its day-to-day presence in Venice, Save Venice hired a local secretary (Maria Luisa Weston) and invited a prominent Venetian (Countess Anna-Maria Cicogna) to join the board of directors.Edgar Driscoll, Jr., "Venice: Salt, acids, dampness threaten art today – while city fears sinking tomorrow," The Boston Globe March 30, 1969 The General Committee grew to include forty members, including John Julius Norwich and Sir Ashley Clarke, both of whom were also leading a sister organization of British supporters, Venice in Peril. Restoration projects in this period included the Scuola Levantina in the Venetian Ghetto, the church of the Gesuiti in Cannaregio, and the cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta on the island of Torcello (the latter in partnership with Venice in Peril and the IFM). Tintoretto's massive Paradise, the largest Old Master painting on canvas in the world, was a significant restoration too, the first of many conservation treatments to benefit this artist. During this period SVI also began to fund local restorers and researchers as well as to support a conservation laboratory run by the Superintendency of Fine Arts.
Expansion (1986–2015)
The twentieth anniversary of the flood in 1986 marked an important change in the fortunes of Save Venice. Previously a largely volunteer organization, Save Venice moved its headquarters from Boston to New York, employed professional staff, and grew correspondingly. New leadership included Larry Lovett as president, Dr. Randolph Guthrie as treasurer, and Beatrice Guthrie as executive director.John Berendt, The City of Falling Angels (New York: Penguin, 2005), 297-298. Based in New York, but often resident in Venice, this trio would dramatically expand the fundraising capability of Save Venice. Their increased ambition was immediately evident in the proposal to restore the entire church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli, eventually costing $4 million and underway from 1990 to 1997. To make such a huge restoration possible, a new approach to raising funds was needed. SVI created a series of multiday galas held about every two years in Venice. These benefits employed a long-weekend format with lectures, receptions and tours, culminating in a black-tie dinner dance; each gala could net a half a million dollars. Lovett and the Guthries worked closely with Venetians to offer access to private palaces and other behind-the-scenes visits. Combined with corporate sponsorships, commercial endorsements, bequests, and a membership program starting in 2010, Save Venice has often raised more in a year than any of the other private committees devoted to Venice.Digitizing the Archives of the Private Committees for the Safeguarding of Venice (December 17, 2011), pp. 6, 47.
The total number of projects underway at one time has steadily increased over the decades, with Save Venice often sponsoring 20-30 projects, in scale from a single painting to an entire building (see below for more on restorations).
A dispute among the board members in 1998 resulted in a walkout of a third of the directors and the creation by Lovett and his alliesJohn Berendt, The City of Falling Angels (New York: Penguin, 2005), 287-330. Monique P. Yazigi, "Send the Gondolas: 'Save Venice' Is Sinking", The New York Times, October 11, 1998. of a separate organization, Venetian Heritage, based in New York. In subsequent years both organizations have flourished, with somewhat separate restoration foci. The Guthries continued to run Save Venice successfully until their joint retirements in 2006. The biennial galas still take place in Venice, linked to important Venetian festivals such as Carnevale, Regatta Storica, Feast of the Redentore, or the Biennale. Starting in the late 1990s, fundraising trips were offered more frequently and extended beyond the Mediterranean to Russia, Turkey, the Black Sea, Madrid, and cruises on the Elbe and Rhine. Educational efforts have included sponsoring fellowships, lecture series, and conferences. Chapters in Boston and Los Angeles were active in this period, but the most significant fundraising was coordinated by the professionally-staffed offices in New York and Venice. The Ballo in Maschera in New York, originally organized by and for the Young Friends group, grew in size starting in 2011, and soon began to gross one million dollars per year and, more recently, net nearly that amount. The benefit evening has frequently sold out well in advance of the date. Its prominence earned it the reputation as the "little sister" to the Metropolitan Museum's Costume Institute Gala."Inside This Year's Save Venice, the Mini Met Gala", Town & Country, April 29, 2019 In 2011, Save Venice Inc. the restoration project of the church of San Sebastiano in Dorsoduro, decorated throughout by the Renaissance painter Paolo Veronese. Between 2010 and 2015, Save Venice Inc. expanded its educational program, including the establishment of the Rosand Library and Study Center in Palazzo Polignac in Venice.
Recent years (2016–present)
Since 2016 Save Venice Inc. has steadily increased its capacity to raise funds and now embarks on several ambitious restoration projects, of the scale of the church of San Sebastiano, simultaneously. These include a year-long celebration of the quincentennial of the birth of native son Jacopo Tintoretto in 2018 ("Tintoretto 500") with support of Tintoretto exhibitions, publications, and the restoration of some 18 paintings by the artist in Venice.Hannah McGivern, "Tintoretto's 500th anniversary takes over Venice", The Art Newspaper, September 4, 2018. At the same time, Save Venice Inc. adopted conservation of the Saint Ursula cycle in the Accademia Galleries by Vittore Carpaccio and Titian's Madonna di Ca' Pesaro and Assunta in the Church of the Frari.