WASHINGTON, DC.- In celebration of the 500th anniversary of the birth of the Venetian Renaissance master Jacopo Tintoretto (1518/1519–1594), the National Gallery of Art, Washington, will present three exhibitions in 2019 that explore the artist's achievement as a painter and draftsman as well as the great printmakers in Venice of his day. Coorganized with the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia with the special cooperation of the Gallerie dell'Accademia, Tintoretto: The Artist of Venice at 500 will open at the Palazzo Ducale, Venice, beginning in September 2018, and then travel to the Gallery—its only other venue—in early 2019, showcasing some 70 paintings and drawings. Drawing in Tintoretto's Venice will present some 60 sheets to explore the drawing practice of Tintoretto as well as his place in the Venetian tradition and will premiere at The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, in October 2018 before coming to Washington. Venetian Prints in the Time of Tintoretto will showcase some 40 prints, from critical sources for Tintoretto's artistic formation to striking graphic responses to the expressiveness of Tintoretto's style. Drawn from the Gallery's permanent collection, this final exhibition can only be seen in Washington and includes works by Parmigianino and Giuseppe Scolari among others. All three Tintoretto exhibitions will open at the Gallery on March 3, 2019.

"Five centuries after his birth, Tintoretto remains one of the titans of Italian painting. The Gallery is pleased to present two unprecedented exhibitions of Tintoretto's work on canvas and on paper, as well as a complementary exhibition on Venetian print making to mark this momentous anniversary," said Earl A. Powell III, director, National Gallery of Art, Washington. "Together, the exhibitions will draw upon the Gallery's rich holdings of work by Tintoretto and provide an American audience with a deeper understanding of this remarkable artist. The full picture of Tintoretto's oeuvre would not be possible without generous international loans, many of which will make their first trip to the U.S. for this momentous occasion."

Tintoretto: The Artist of Venice at 500
Palazzo Ducale, Venice, September 7–January 6, 2019
National Gallery of Art, Washington, March 3–June 30, 2019
Tintoretto: The Artist of Venice at 500, the first retrospective of the artist in North America, features nearly 50 paintings and more than a dozen works on paper spanning the artist's entire career. Included in the rich selection of domestic and international loans are works ranging from regal portraits of Venetian aristocracy to religious and mythological narrative scenes. In addition, Tintoretto will explore the artist's working methods

The exhibition curators are Tintoretto experts Robert Echols, independent scholar, and Frederick Ilchman, chair of the Art of Europe department and Mrs. Russell W. Baker Curator of Paintings at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. While Tintoretto was considered one of the "Big Three" 16th-century Venetian painters alongside Titian and Paolo Veronese during his lifetime and in the succeeding centuries, works by Tintoretto's assistants and followers have frequently been misattributed to the master. Echols and Ilchman are widely responsible for a new and more accurate understanding of Tintoretto's oeuvre and chronology, first explored in the Museo del Prado's Tintoretto exhibition in 2007. A fully illustrated exhibition catalog will be published in English and Italian and include a range of essays by the curators and other leading scholars as well as new research and scientific studies of Tintoretto's work.

Drawing in Tintoretto's Venice
The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, October 12, 2018–January 6, 2019
National Gallery of Art, Washington, March 3–May 26, 2019
The first exhibition to focus specifically on Tintoretto's work as a draftsman, Drawing in Tintoretto's Venice provides new ideas about his evolution as a draftsman, about the dating and function of the so-called "sculpture drawings," and about Tintoretto's place in the Venetian tradition.

The exhibition begins with drawings by Tintoretto's predecessors and contemporaries, including Titian, Veronese, and Jacopo Bassano, to show his sources as well as his individuality. Tintoretto's distinctive figure drawings are the heart of the show, which includes both preparatory drawings and a group of his studies after sculptures by Michelangelo and others that document the teaching practice in Tintoretto's workshop. The exhibition also considers artists whose drawing style was influenced by Tintoretto's, particularly his son Domenico Tintoretto and Palma Giovane. A final section of the exhibition considers an interesting group of drawings—always connected with Tintoretto and his followers—that has recently been proposed as the work of the young El Greco, dating from his time in Venice.

An accompanying catalog will be written by John Marciari, the Charles W. Engelhard Curator and head of the department of drawings and prints at The Morgan Library & Museum, with possible contributions from other scholars. The exhibition curator in Washington is Jonathan Bober, Andrew W. Mellon Senior Curator of Prints and Drawings, National Gallery of Art.

Venetian Prints in the Time of Tintoretto
National Gallery of Art, Washington, March 3–May 26, 2019
Completing the panorama of Venetian art in the time of Tintoretto is an exhibition that will present some 40 prints from the second half of the 16th century, ranging from the exquisite etchings of Parmigianino and his immediate followers in the Veneto, to the spectacular woodcuts of Giuseppe Scolari, most from the Gallery's own collection. They will reveal a critical source for Tintoretto's artistic formation, parallel developments toward a distinctively Venetian mannerism, and striking graphic responses to the dynamism and expressiveness of Tintoretto's style.

The exhibition curator is Jonathan Bober, Andrew W. Mellon Senior Curator of Prints and Drawings, National Gallery of Art.