Jane Fortune

Writing

Fortune is cultural editor of The Florentine, an English-language newspaper in Tuscany, in which she has appeared as a regular art and culture columnist since the newspaper’s founding in 2005. Her original column Mosaics (2005 – 2008), led to her writing a guidebook on Florence’s culture To Florence, Con Amore: 77 Ways to Love the City (The Florentine Press, 2007). The book’s second edition, reprinted three years later with 13 additional chapters, is titled To Florence, Con Amore: 90 Ways to Love the City (The Florentine Press, 2011).

Fortune’s subsequent books, documentaries and essays are largely influenced by her efforts to safeguard and promote art by women artists. Her book Invisible Women: Forgotten Artists of Florence (2009) documents women painters in Florence and their thousands of works on display or in storage, many of which are in need of restoration. In 2009, the book was presented to the Uffizi Library. This volume was followed up in 2012 by a guidebook she co-authored with Linda Falcone, which describes where to view artworks by women artists in the public collections of Florence: Art by Women in Florence: A Guide through Five Hundred Years (The Florentine Press, 2012).

Restoring art by women in Florence

In 2005, with the goal of raising awareness about the achievements of women artists and protecting their artworks, Fortune founded the Italian not-for-profit organization, The Florence Committee of the National Museum for Women in the Arts. In 2006, under Fortune’s leadership, The Florence Committee funded the restoration of the San Marco Museum’s Lamentation with Saints, a large-scale Renaissance painting by Suor Plautilla Nelli, Florence’s first recognized woman painter. In 2008, her quest continued with the restoration of David and Bathsheba by seventeenth-century Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi. Following up on these achievements but wishing to work on a broader scope, in 2009, Fortune founded the not for profit American organization (5013c), Advancing Women Artists Foundation (AWA), dedicated to researching, restoring and exhibiting art work by women artists, particularly in Florence, Italy.

Other projects in Florence

Since Fortune founded the Advancing Women Artists Foundation (AWA )in 2009, it has carried out several restoration projects for drawings, paintings and sculptures by women artists in Florence from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries including Dominican convent painter Suor Plautilla Nelli at the San Salvi’s Last Supper Museum, eighteenth-century Florentine poet-painter Irene Parenti Duclos at the Accademia Gallery and nineteenth-century French sculptor Fèlicie De Fauveau in Santa Croce and Santa Maria del Carmine. The foundation also sponsors exhibitions, conference, seminars, books and documentaries to promote the achievements of historic women artists, in addition to safeguarding their work. The Foundation sponsors an honors program, “The Nelli Awards”, dedicated to recognizing modern-day women working in Florence, including women curators, artists and restorers.

In 2010, Fortune established the Jane Fortune Research Program at the Medici Archive Project in Florence, for finding new archival documents regarding the history of women artists, assisting study of this material by scholars, and mentoring young scholars in the field.

Projects in the United States

In 2008, with co-founder Robert Hesse, Fortune established the Indianapolis City Ballet (ICB), a not for profit organization that supports ballet performances with international dancers from ballet companies from several countries and master classes with these dancers in Indianapolis.

Fortune has been a member of several museum boards, and is currently a member of the Board of Governors of the Indianapolis Museum of Art and a member of the National Advisory Board of the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington DC. She is on the National Board of Advisors at the Indiana University Museum of Art in Bloomington, Indiana and a founding member of the Women's Philanthropy Council at Indiana University. Fortune is a former member of the board of directors of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and was past chair of the board of trustees of Studio Arts Center International (SACI) in Florence. She is an honorary member of the Dean’s Advisory Board at Herron School of Art and Design in Indianapolis, Indiana and is on the Board of Trustees of the Medici Archive Project (Florence, Italy and New York). In Philadelphia, Fortune co-founded USArtists, an American Fine Art Show and Sale, which benefitted the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. She is founder of the same organization’s Special Needs Program which resulted in the establishment of a Women’s Board Endowed Scholarship at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, a scholarship for persons with disabilities to attend the PAFA’s art school. She endowed the Jane Fortune Outstanding Women Visiting Artist Lecture at Herron School of Art and Design. Past lecturers have been Eleanor Antin, Maria Magdalena Compos-Pons, Judy Chicago, Judith Shea, Audrey Flack, Betty Woodman and Polly Apfelbaum.She is former Chairman of the Board of the Deafness Research Foundation in New York City and its volunteer President/CEO.

Recognitions and awards

In 2010 Fortune was awarded an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters from Indiana University for her work as an author and philanthropist in the United States and Italy. In 2007, the Indianapolis Mayor’s Advisory Council on Disabilities awarded Fortune their Accessibility Award for her work on accessibility and inclusion for persons with disabilities. Maxwell Anderson—the Melvin & Bren Simon Director and CEO of the Indianapolis Museum of Art— nominated her for the Accessibility Award, for her leadership and financial support of the museum’s accessibility program. In 2008, Dr. Fortune also received the ‘Spirit of Philanthropy Award’ from Indiana University, Purdue University (IUPUI), the Herron School of Art and Design in Indianapolis. In 2013, the documentary Invisible Women: Forgotten Artists of Florence, based on her 2009 book by the same name, was awarded a regional Emmy Award as Best Documentary in the Historical/Cultural Program Category. In 2013, for her work in Florence she received the Tuscan-American Association Award. This award, presented annually at Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio, honors an American and an Italian for their contributions to the culture of Florence. Past awardees include Andrea Bocelli, Zubin Mehta and Franco Zeffirelli.

Publications