By Allie Terry-Fritsch, Professor of Art History at BGSU & Professor of Faculty-Led Program at ISI-Florence 2025 and upcoming in 2027.
Reimagining Italy Through Art
How do you imagine Italy? A recent exhibition at Bowling Green State University (BGSU) in Ohio explored creative responses to the question by sixty artists from the Renaissance to today. Curated by BGSU Art History students under the direction of Art History Professor Allie Terry-Fritsch, the exhibition featured nearly one hundred works of art from the BGSU Fine Arts Galleries’ permanent collection to highlight Italy as an ever-evolving idea and an enduring legacy of creative inspiration. Artists from eleven nationalities visualized an Italy that vibrates with beauty and instigates a new way of seeing. Works spanned a variety of media, from painting, printmaking, photography, graphic design, and drawing to glass, ceramics, metals, fibers, and digital videos.
A Legacy of Learning Abroad
BGSU’s School of Art has been sending students and faculty to Italy for nearly half a century, with each cohort returning indelibly changed by their experience of the art and culture of the Italian Peninsula. Italy in the Artist’s Imagination paid tribute to the transformative impact of travel abroad by featuring works by BGSU students and faculty alongside pieces by famous artists from the past who were similarly inspired by their Italian sojourns. This included works by the German Renaissance artist, Albrecht Dürer, and French Baroque master, Jacques Callot, both of whom used their experiences in Italy to propel their artistic careers once they returned to their home countries. The exhibition also showcased the long history of BGSU’s partnerships with schools in Florence as well as the generosity of patrons, who have made artistic travel possible. The exhibition invited visitors to take a glimpse into the creative mind transformed by Italy and, hopefully, left them with a new Italy pictured in their own imaginations.
Entrance to the Dorothy Uber Bryan Gallery of the BGSU Fine Arts Center.- Entrance wall of Italy in the Artist’s Imagination at BGSU.
Inside the Mary T. Wolfe Primavera Seminar
During the Summer I term in 2025, Professor Terry-Fritsch brought a cohort of 10 students to ISI Florence on the first biennial faculty-led program called the Mary T. Wolfe Primavera Seminar. The 2025 theme for the seminar centered on “Fra Angelico and the Florentine Renaissance” and investigated the behind-the-scenes activities that went into staging the blockbuster exhibition, Fra Angelico, which opened to great success in Florence on September 26th in Palazzo Strozzi and the Museo di San Marco. Terry-Fritsch was one of a select group of scholars invited by the Chief Curator of the Fra Angelico exhibition, Carl Brandon Strehlke, to participate in the research and writing of the exhibition catalogue. Professor Terry-Fritsch was also responsible for selecting a group of rare manuscripts for display in the exhibition at the former convent of San Marco in Florence. While at ISI Florence, she introduced her BGSU students to Strehlke, who provided insider knowledge of the exhibition. To better understand the artist Fra Angelico, Professor Terry-Fritsch brought students on multiple field trips to San Marco, the convent of San Domenico in Fiesole, the Uffizi, the former convent of Santa Maria degli Angeli, and the art restoration studio of Daniele Rossi. She also led a three-hour workshop inside the Biblioteca Laurenziana, where students had a private viewing of the rare manuscripts that went on display in the Fra Angelico exhibition.
From Florence to Ohio: Students Become Curators
The BGSU-ISI students then brought their experiences back to Ohio and put them into practice on the formulation and staging of their own exhibition. Terry-Fritsch guided them on each step of the process, from selecting the works for inclusion, to performing archival research on the selected artists and writing catalogue entries on each, to conceptualizing the internal themes for the exhibition, to designing the layout and flow of the exhibition space, to preparing the gallery and hanging the works, to developing guided tours, and arranging outreach events. The BGSU exhibition organized the display of works into eight thematic sections, including “Sacred Encounters,” “Art and Politics,” “Street Life,” and “Past is Present”.
Student-curator Jamie Cox considered her study abroad at ISI Florence as critical to her success. She said, “Studying abroad at ISI Florence was crucial in informing the decisions I made when curating this exhibition. I was able to make connections between artworks and topics based on my personal experience in Florence and the cultural immersion I was able to experience while at ISI”. Similarly, Alex Suttles, another student who studied at ISI under Dr. Terry-Fritsch in Summer 2025, claimed, “While curating this exhibition after the incredible opportunity to study abroad in Florence, I was able to see many aspects of Italy reflected in the works that I, too, got to experience first-hand and grew to adore. The exhibition, Italy in the Artist’s Imagination, became something more personal to me, as I got to embed my own memories of Italy and what I felt over the summer into the gallery”.
Learning to See Like an Art Historian
The students were prepared for the intense labor of staging an exhibition from their interactions with Strehlke and Terry-Fritsch over the summer. Suttles explained, “I had the privilege of meeting and speaking to several professional Art Historians in Italy during my ISI seminar on ‘Fra Angelico and the Florentine Renaissance.’ Dr. Strehlke spoke with us students on his expertise as a curator and Art Historian and went into depth on how he curated the Fra Angelico show. I felt more prepared to help curate Italy in the Artist’s Imagination because of it, as I had learned all about how and why an exhibition is curated and the hard work that goes into putting it on”.
Cox explained how her research assignments at ISI Florence under Professor Terry-Fritsch helped to prepare her for the exhibition. She remarked, “Beyond the knowledge of Florentine art and architecture I learned while participating in the Mary T Wolfe Primavera Seminar, the experience taught me the art of conducting primary research. With Italy in the Artist’s Imagination, we researched the artist, techniques, and provenance of works in BGSU’s permanent collection, resulting in new discoveries and attributions. The art of observation that was fundamental in the ISI Florence seminar was crucial in preparing me for the research endeavors that were needed to curate this exhibition”.
Art Inspired by Florence
In addition to ISI alumni serving as student-curators, several of the exhibiting artists also studied at ISI Florence and used their experiences to fuel their artistic output. Devon Holbrook, now an Instructor of Photography at the Toledo School for the Arts, exhibited a photograph that she had taken inside the Uffizi while a student at ISI. Jess Faber, a senior BFA student in Printmaking, displayed a screenprint that incorporated three different photographs of Florentine statues taken during her Art History classes. Summer Land, Madison Hunady, and Laura Ewell—all students from the Summer I 2025 cohort at ISI—displayed paintings that they made under the direction of ISI’s Art Professor, Tiziano Lucchesi.
Professor Terry-Fritsch wanted future students to know about the opportunity for them to study abroad at ISI Florence, so she dedicated an entire section of the exhibition to ISI resources. ISI’s Marketing Coordinator, Nina Peci, contributed posters for display, and ISI Aboad recruiter, Amanda Fontana, sent information and swag that interested students quickly picked up.
Inspiring the Next Generation of Travelers
The student-curators also wanted to encourage new students to study abroad at ISI. Suttles exclaimed, “Italy is a gorgeous country, rich with cultural, religious, and artistic history, and ISI is an amazingly supportive institution that is passionate about sending students abroad. I implore everyone to study abroad. Regardless of what it takes, the skills and memories you acquire are priceless and unforgettable. I’m far more independent after traveling so far from home, family, and friends. I got to experience artworks in person and see the minute brushstrokes of the artist, such as Fra Angelico’s altarpieces, which is something that cannot be done in a classroom.” Cox echoed the sentiment, “I will always recommend that a student experience the city of Florence at ISI. Learning how to navigate a new city and the independence that comes with it is applicable across all professional fields. For my major specifically, the in-person viewing and research on art is essential to the field of art history and will only set a student up for success in their future careers.”
BGSU will offer the next Mary T. Wolfe Primavera Seminar at ISI Florence in Summer 2027. Professor Terry-Fritsch will center the Art History course on the theme of “Partying in the Renaissance,” the subject of her next research monograph, which students will explore in Florence’s art collections.