Sicily: Art and Invention Between Greece and Rome to travel to the Cleveland Museum of Art

CLEVELAND (August 23, 2013) – The Cleveland Museum of Art is pleased to announce that the exhibition, Sicily: Art and Invention Between Greece and Rome, will open as scheduled on Sunday, September 29, 2013. All of the objects in the recently closed exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum, most notably the Mozia Charioteer and Phiale Mesomphalos, will be coming to Cleveland under terms that are consistent with the agreements previously reached among the government of the Region of Sicily, the Getty and the Cleveland Museum of Art, including an exhibition in Sicily of select masterworks from the museum’s Italian art collection planned for sometime in 2015.

“Our discussions with the government of Sicily resulted in a very favorable agreement that will benefit both the museum and the Sicilian public,” said David Franklin, Sarah S. and Alexander M. Cutler director. “Cleveland has a rich Italian heritage and we are excited to be able to present this exhibition as originally planned and scheduled.”

“Our hope is that this exhibition and the reciprocal exhibition in Sicily of several masterworks from our collection of Italian paintings, including Caravaggio’s Crucifixion of Saint Andrew, will be just the beginning of a period of long term cultural cooperation with Sicily,” added Franklin.

Co-organized with the J. Paul Getty Museum, Sicily: Art and Invention Between Greece and Rome features original scholarship and presents masterpieces of art from ancient Sicily. The exhibition celebrates Sicilian culture of the fifth to third centuries BC, when its art, architecture, theater, poetry, philosophy and science left an original and enduring stamp on both mainland Greece and Rome. Over 150 objects bear witness to the military and athletic victories, religious and civic rituals, opulent lifestyles and intellectual attainments that shaped the western Greek world.

The exhibition will be on view at the Cleveland venue through January 5, 2014.