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CINCINNATI — April 7, 2025 — The Foundation for Italian Art & Culture (FIAC) has awarded the Cincinnati Art Museum (CAM) and Cameron Kitchin, its Louis and Louise Dieterle Nippert Director, the 2024 Excellency Award, an honor that acknowledges exceptional contributions to the promotion of Italian culture. FIAC presents the Excellency award to a U.S. and Italian honoree each year. CAM was honored to receive the award alongside the Galleria Borghese and Director Francesca Cappelletti.

Based in New York City, FIAC is a non-profit organization committed to promoting Italian art in the U.S. by facilitating the loan of Italian masterpieces to American museums and supporting the restoration of artworks in Italy.

In the past decade under Kitchin’s leadership, CAM has partnered with FIAC to make several contributions to the promotion of Italian artistic traditions through both the presentation and conservation of important Renaissance and Baroque paintings. The most recent example is Tintoretto’s Genesis, a research, conservation, exhibition and publication project undertaken by the two organizations and the Gallerie dell’Accademia di Venezia (GAVe). The year-long study and restoration project of three paintings by Jacopo Tintoretto (1518–1594)—The Creation of the Animals, The Temptation of Adam, and Cain and Abel—culminates in an exhibition that will mark the paintings’ premiere in the United States. Tintoretto’s Genesis opens April 18, 2025, at CAM.

"For nearly ten years, Cameron Kitchin and the Cincinnati Art Museum have been exceptional collaborators and valued partners of FIAC,” shared Olivia D’Aponte, Executive Director of FIAC. “Together, we have embraced bold ideas that have led to beautiful exhibitions and important restoration work."

Tintoretto’s Genesis is the fourth collaboration between CAM and FIAC. In 2015, CAM and FIAC brought Raphael’s Portrait of a Lady with a Unicorn from the Galleria Borghese, Rome, to the U.S. for exhibition. The two organizations partnered again in 2017 to build a focus exhibition at CAM around the loan of Guido Cagnacci’s Death of Cleopatra from the Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan.  The GAVe, FIAC and CAM came together in 2019 to bring Giorgione’s enigmatic painting La Vecchia to the U.S. for exhibition after its transformative conservation treatment.

FIAC has presented the Excellency Award to the leadership of esteemed institutions since its inception in 2005, including directors of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gallerie degli Uffizi, National Gallery, London, MoMA, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and Frick Collection, among others.

About the Cincinnati Art Museum

The Cincinnati Art Museum features a diverse, encyclopedic art collection of more than 73,000 works spanning 6,000 years. In addition to displaying its own broad collection, the museum conducts extensive research and creates and organizes several exhibitions each year. It also hosts national and international traveling exhibitions. Through these critical projects and art-related programs, activities, and special events, the museum contributes to a more vibrant Cincinnati by inspiring its people and connecting its communities.

 The Cincinnati Art Museum is supported by the generosity of individuals and businesses that give annually to ArtsWave. The Ohio Arts Council helps fund the Cincinnati Art Museum with state tax dollars to encourage economic growth, educational excellence, and cultural enrichment for all Ohioans. The Cincinnati Art Museum gratefully acknowledges operating support from the City of Cincinnati, as well as its members. Free general admission to the Cincinnati Art Museum is made possible by a gift from the Rosenthal Family Foundation. Exhibition pricing may vary. Generous support for the museum’s extended Thursday hours is provided by Art Bridges Foundation’s Access for All program. Parking at the Cincinnati Art Museum is free. More information is available at cincinnatiartmuseum.org.

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