Michelangelo exhibition covered in NY Times, other national news

Michelangelo: Sacred and Profane Twenty-five drawings preserved by Michelangelo’s descendants from the family home, the Casa Buonarroti in Florence, will be on view at W&M's Muscarelle Museum of Art Feb. 9 – April 14. Photo by Steve Helber, AP

Michelangelo: Sacred and Profane Pina Ragionieri, director of the Casa Buonarroti (left), and John T. Spike, assistant director of the Muscarelle and curator of the exhibition, stand beside the double-sided portrait of history’s most notorious temptress, Cleopatra. Photo by Stephen Salpukas

Michelangelo: Sacred and Profane A sketch of Cleopatra as some horrible wraith surprised curators when they discovered a hidden drawing on the back of this famous portrait in 1998. Photo by Stephen Salpukas

by Megan Shearin | February 24, 2013

The recent opening of a landmark Michelangelo exhibition at William & Mary’s Muscarelle Museum of Art has been lauded and applauded nationwide by every aspect of the news media.

The latest article to laud the university’s 25-drawing exhibition of one of history’s most important and influential artists is a calendar piece in the Sunday New York Times Travel section. The NY Times also broke the story in September 2012, announcing the exhibition in conjunction with the Muscarelle’s 30^th anniversary.

A day before the public opening on Feb. 9, the Associated Press published an article on the exhibition, Michelangelo: Sacred and Profane, Masterpiece Drawings from the Casa Buonarroti, which ran with four photos taken by an AP photographer. The story was picked up nationally that weekend, hitting websites such as the Washington Post, ABC News, San Francisco Chronicle and the Huffington Post. USA Today featured the exhibition in their statewide news updates.

Large pictures of Michelangelo’s drawings adorned the front pages above the fold of the Virginian-Pilot and the Daily Press feature sections, along with in-depth stories explaining how William & Mary’s “modest museum” – the Virginian-Pilot’s description – nabbed the largest U.S. show of the master’s drawings in decades.

Award-winning public radio show With Good Reason out of Charlottesville, Va., produced a segment featuring a guided tour of the exhibition. The show was broadcast on stations in Washington, D.C., Virginia, Maryland, Tennessee, Georgia, Colorado, Alaska, California and Michigan.

Locally, the exhibition, along with in-studio interviews with Aaron De Groft, director of the Muscarelle and John T. Spike, curator of the exhibition, was featured on television networks WTVR-CBS 6 and WVEC-13. Local papers including the Richmond-Times Dispatch, Virginia Gazette, and the Williamsburg-Yorktown Daily published stories on the debut of the exhibition that began its two-city tour in Williamsburg. The Richmond Family Magazine and Virginia is for Lovers website also ran stories publicizing the event to community members throughout the Commonwealth. Virginia Living has written a feature piece with art, slated to run in the upcoming spring issue.

The exhibition, which is on display through April 14, has been a hit on campus as well. More than 1,000 students attended a gallery tour on Sunday, Feb. 10, just one-day after the opening. The Flat Hat, the Dog Street Journal and the Virginian Informer – all student publications – attended a media preview.