Lecture: Love Actually in Renaissance Italy

Ruth Wilkins Sullivan, research curator emeritus at the Kimbell Art Museum, will present “Love Actually in Renaissance Italy” as part of the Museum’s “Art in Context” series.

In this free lecture, featuring works of art from the forthcoming exhibition Art and Love in Renaissance Italy, Sullivan will explore the themes of love, betrothal, and marriage in Renaissance Italy. She will examine the status of love and marriage among the powerful, dynastic families that ruled the dazzling courts of Renaissance Italy and whether marriage was for love or simply political expediency.

Sullivan, the founding curator of education at the Kimbell, specializes in pre-Renaissance Italian painting and has traveled extensively in Italy, particularly in Tuscany and to Venice. She is the author of various scholarly articles focusing on Renaissance art. She was also curator of the Kimbell’s exhibition Wealth of the Ancient World: The Nelson Bunker Hunt and William Herbert Hunt Collection (1983).