PROGRAMME: The Garden Project. Spring/Summer 2024
From May to September 2024, this programme of events and publications includes an exhibition, workshops, publication and more...
It forms part of ‘The Garden Project’, organised by Il Palmerino Cultural Association and Calliope Arts Foundation, in conjunction with the British Institute of Florence, 2024-2027. The Garden Project 2024 is part of the “Estate Fiorentina”, an initiative proposed within the City of Florence’s Operational Plan.
May 2024
'Torn in Two': Grant for young restorers
at Atelier degli Artigianelli
Four young grant-awardees of German, American, Egyptian and Slovakian descent have completed their paper restoration workshop at the Atelier degli Artigianelli in the Oltrarno. Three works by artist Lola Costa were restored: a heavily stained watercolour depicting children playing in a bamboo grove, an early pastel linked to the artist’s Egypt cruise in 1929, and a watercolour depicting Il Palmerino’s garden at sunset (torn in two).
During the workshop, grant recipients also restored a 19th-century historical map of the estate and surrounding areas, with handwritten notes by author Vernon Lee. They also cleaned and restored architectural blueprints of the house that Vernon Lee designed at Il Palmerino, first for her friend Irene Forbes Mosse and then for herself, which include her directions for the project.
June 26 to September 26, 2024
Exhibition: Return Home: Lola Costa at Il Palmerino
Via del Palmerino 6, Florence
Lola Costa, Artichoke flowers and eggs, 1974, ph. Il Palmerino Archive
Lola Costa was an English ex-pat poet and painter – largely of still-life works, portraiture and landscapes – who lived at Il Palmerino for nearly 70 years, after purchasing the estate following the death of its former owner, British writer Vernon Lee. Lee’s former archive forms part of the British Institute Library collection. She was a key member of the English community in Florence, ‘holding court’ for local and international intellectuals and creatives, many of whom were women, including Janet Ross, Edith Wharton, Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell.
"Until September 26, you can visit its colonica for the art exhibition Return Home: Lola Costa at Il Palmerino, and if you do, you’ll understand that the “home” to which the title refers is partly yours as well. Why? Because culture lovers are genuinely welcome there," writes author Linda Falcone in her The Florentine article Lola Costa exhibition at Il Palmerino. "In 1935, Lola moved her family there, together with her painter husband, Federigo Angeli. In and overlooking its gardens, the couple began a prolific period of “art solidarity”, rare among history’s artist couples," Falcone continues. "The estate’s garden and all of its fruits and flowers made their way onto Lola’s canvases with early twentieth-century flair. There was something French in the way she treated her subjects because, in Lola’s first phase, the world’s contemporary art capital was still Paris, not New York. Lola’s domestic scenes—a varnished orange coffee pot, a bowl of fresh-picked pomegranates, the lemons from Lee’s garden, which Lola jealously protected—figure in her works, as if offered on a tray, and the one meant to be enjoying her bounty is you."
June 2024
PUBLICATION OF THE CURATORS' QUADERNO
A painter's Florentine garden: Lola Costa and Il Palmerino
The first edition of The Curators’ Quaderno explores the evolution of Lola Costa’s art over the course of the 20th century, through paintings, drawings, and poetry. Thanks to the musings of curators and sector experts. Issue 1 of this new publication examines Costa’s life as an expat British woman in Florence, and follows the makings of the exhibition, ‘Return Home: Lola Costa at Il Palmerino’, curated by Il Palmerino's president and the artist’s granddaughter Federica Parretti.
The debut edition of The Curators’ Quaderno, a notebook-style publication conceived and developed by the Calliope Arts Foundation and The Florentine, marks the 20th anniversary of Lola’s death, and aims to commemorate the legacy of her Tuscan hillside home. “Lola Costa’s art and poetry are infused with the spirit of Il Palmerino and its gardens, which continue to foster connections between creative personalities of the past and present,” Parretti adds. Press cover below to view the publication. No registration necessary.
Lola Costa Archive research begins
June 2024
When painter Lola Costa took charge of the estate, following her husband Federigo Angeli’s death in the early 1950s, painter and poet Lola Costa strove to continue Il Palmerino’s vocation for ‘cultural exchange’ through her own art and interest in Vernon Lee scholarship. Today, Lola Costa’s family, led by her granddaughter Federica Parretti – president of the Cultural Association Il Palmerino and manager of the garden-estate – strives to uphold the artist’s legacy, by preserving Il Palmerino’s house, garden, grove and fields, and by exhibiting and promoting her pictures and poetry.
Thanks to a grant by the Calliope Arts Foundation, Federica, together with Viola Parretti, Stefano Vinceri are currently building the Lola Costa Archive, with the support of visiting scholars and interns. In 2026, it will become part of the Vernon Lee Library collection at the British Institute of Florence, as a tribute to Lola’s ‘passion project’: facilitating international Vernon Lee scholars, in their connections with Florentine institutions.
A rare glimpse of Lola Costa's studio, where archival research begins, ph. Cinestudio Italy
25 and 26 July 2024
Open Day Potter Workshop
with potter Poiret Masse at Il Palmerino
On canvas or in clay? How do women artists of the past inspire today’s creative personalities? On Thursday July 25 and Friday July 26, visit Il Palmerino for an ‘Open Day’ workshop hosted by potter Poiret Masse, for conversation and demonstrations throughout the day. From 10am to 6pm, after visiting the exhibition ‘Return Home: Lola Costa and Il Palmerino’ learn how Poiret’s pottery stands in conversation with the earthenware Costa captured in her many still-life works on show like Costa's Vases and Lavender (1973) and Quinces with a Rolling Pin (1974) or Masse has worked in Florence for more than a decade, and she is founder of a local pottery company called La Guardaroba Firenze.
Potter Poiret Masse, ph. courtesy of the artist
July 2024
One Garden, Many Souls: International Artists Portray Il Palmerino
A VIDEO TRIBUTE TO LOLA COSTA AND HER HOME
Fifty international artists from all over the world portray the garden of Il Palmerino, now a cultural association, once home to British painter Lola Costa and English author Vernon Lee. French painters Janet Jaffke and Virginie Houdet, English artists Lorraine Thorne and Helen Cammock, New Zealander Annie Wheeler and Russian painter Katrina Dragoska, are just some of the artists who contributed their work to this tribute for early twentieth-century artist Lola Costa, featured at the exhibition 'Return Home: Lola Costa at Il Palmerino' (June to September 2024). This video showcases the perspectives of artists from all over the globe, from Hungary and Holland, to Canada, the United States and Australia, who consider Il Palmerino one of their most evocative creative homes. To watch the video, click the image below.
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