Piranesi's Grandest Tour

Overview

The 18th-century Italian printmaker Giovanni Battista Piranesi achieved fame for his etchings of real and imaginary buildings: Roman ruins, baroque cityscapes, and fantastical prisons. This retrospective reassesses his life and his art, as well as the complex world of his son, Francesco, whose promotion of his father’s work was overshadowed by allegations of espionage. The book also reveals the story of Australian collectors of Piranesi’s work and his influence on Australian artists, from Russell Drysdale to Rick Amor and Marco Luccio.

Author Biography

Colin Holden is a social historian and a senior fellow in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at Melbourne University. He has been a guest curator of exhibitions at the National Gallery of Victoria, the State Library of Victoria, and the Geelong Art Gallery, and has published extensively on the visual arts, nationalism, radical politics, and the churches.