Walter CUPPERI

Walter Cupperi

Associate Professor in Museology, the History of Collecting and of the Decorative Arts

Walter Cupperi received his Ph.D. in Art History from the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. Before coming to Venice, he taught at the Maximilians-Universität, Munich, the Philipps-Universität, Marburg, the Universidad de Andalucia, Seville, the Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti, Milan, and the Universität Stuttgart.

He was awarded fellowships from the American Academy in Rome, the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (Bibliotheca Hertziana), the Ministère de la Communauté Française of Belgium, the Italian Academy at Columbia University, New York, the Italian Numismatic Society, Milan, and Telecom Italia, Milan. He was Exzellenziniziative Research Fellow at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich (2009-13) and the Fundación Gondra-Barandiarán Senior Fellow at the Museo Nacional del Prado (2016-17).

He co-curated the exhibition Wettstreit in Erz: Porträtmedaillen der deutschen Renaissance 1518-1628 (Competition in Ore: Portrait Medals of the German Renaissance, Munich, Staatliche Münzsammlungen; Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Dresden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, 2013-2016) and gave invited lectures at Columbia University (2009), the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte in Munich (2012), the University of Vienna (2012) and the Museo Nacional del Prado (2017).

His research addresses issues of material culture from a postnational perspective. In particular, it focuses on the early modern circulation of artists, artifacts and techniques between Italy, Spain, the ancient Netherlands and the German-speaking area. His areas of interest include early modern multiples, Habsburg and Medici-Lorraine patronage and collections, the theory of collecting, the cultures of portrait, Western European sculpture, metalwork and jewellery in the period spanning the ninth to the seventeenth century, the history of art scholarship, as well as several aspects of the classical tradition (e.g. collections of antiquities, early modern numismatic scholarship, and casts from the antique). He contributed to the collection catalogues of the Frick Collection, New York, and the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence.