January Feature: Italy in the Artist’s Imagination
“Italy in the Artist’s Imagination”: An exploration of the influence that Italy, and the idea of Italy, has had on artistic creativity. November 21–December 10, 2025
Blog Summary:
This article highlights BGSU’s approach to teaching curatorial best practices in an immersive, collaborative environment, drawing from a legacy of study abroad supported by faculty, staff, alumni, and the community. It also calls attention to the strategic use of archival framing techniques, particularly the use of the Nielsen metal framing system, as an economical and innovative approach to long-term art care. (A 10-minute read)
Authored by Laura Jajko, second-generation co-owner of American Frame and former president of the BGSU Arts Leadership Council
Background
For our company, a commitment to the arts has always been more than a marketing line. It is part of our history.
More than fifty years ago, when my dad first imagined the company that would become American Frame, he shared the idea with Aschel Bryan, a banker and then chairman of the BGSU Board of Trustees and Foundation. Aschel believed in him and backed it on a handshake deal. That simple act propelled our business and forged a lasting relationship with Bowling Green State University.
Out of that early connection came an enduring dedication to supporting the School of Fine Arts at BGSU and, eventually, arts programs across the country. The arts matter. The work done inside universities shapes creative futures, preserves cultural memory, and lifts entire communities.
Three works that set the tone:
Lo Studio (print, 1992) by Jules Maidoff, founder of SACI (Studio Arts Center International in Florence);
Christ Taking Leave From His Mother (woodcut, 1511) by Albrecht Dürer; and
Prospettiva (screenprint, 2024) by Jessica Faber, student.
The Exhibit
This sense of shared purpose made the exhibition Italy in the Artist’s Imagination especially meaningful to me. It represents a new chapter for the university’s gallery spaces and reflects the strength of its academic programs.
The exhibition is the first fully student-curated exhibition of its kind at BGSU. It was organized by sixteen students enrolled in the School of Art History’s Professional Practices seminar. Under the direction of Dr. Allie Terry-Fritsch, and with guidance from Fine Arts Center Galleries Curator Stephanie Garafolo, students undertook the full curatorial process from research to installation.
Their work resulted in an exhibition of nearly fifty pieces selected from close to ninety objects in the University Art Collection. These included works by Renaissance and Baroque masters, mid-century Italian artists, and contemporary works by BGSU faculty, students, and alumni. Media ranged from works on paper and canvas to sculpture, glass, ceramics, and digital art.
As a friend of the program, I had the privilege of a private walkthrough of the show, which quickly became an informal masterclass with Allie and Stephanie. What a treat, and what I learned.
The installation itself caught me off guard with its immediate impact: the power of the purpose, the palette, and the panorama. While “panorama” may seem like an unusual word choice, it captures both the visual presentation of the space and the range and diversity of the work on view.
The purpose was immersive curatorial training for BA students in art history. The palette was inspired by the green in Lo Studio by Jules Maidoff, founder of Studio Arts Center International in Florence, BGSU’s original partner for art study abroad. Terracotta tones, prevalent in Italian landscape, art, and architecture, provided an energetic backdrop for the work, creating an experience with meaning and flow. It made me proud.
Throughout the visit, Dr. Terry-Fritsch was in full professorial mode, offering an energetic overview of many important pieces while emphasizing the larger purpose at play.
For the students, this was an unusually immersive experience—a capstone course within the Art History Department. They were challenged to lead the entire project from start to finish: researching each work, understanding provenance and historical context, and engaging with the practical realities of stewarding a collection.
They also faced difficult decisions, including communicating with artists whose work was not selected. These were critical professional lessons.
From left to right: Stephanie Garafolo, BGSU Fine Arts Center Galleries Curator; Dr. Allie Terry-Fritsch, BGSU professor of art history; and me—wearing my favorite Italian leather jacket, a quiet testament to my personal love of Italy and Italian design.
Caring for Collections
The permanent collection at BGSU is extensive and had not been on view for years, as recent exhibitions focused primarily on BFA and MFA student work.
As a result, many artworks had experienced long-term storage in crowded flat files or were housed in framing that no longer supported proper preservation. Under the guidance of Stephanie Garafolo, students gained hands-on experience with recovery efforts, cataloging practices, and techniques for responsible art care.
Archival art mounting, display, and storage are critical to this work. Stephanie is a strong advocate for using modular Nielsen aluminum framing systems for economical, archival gallery framing. She values working with American Frame for access to flexible, high-quality materials.
“We use archival backing boards, mat boards, and framing acrylic, precision cutting each to the size of the artwork and the frames we procure in standard sizes. After each exhibit, the works are unframed, the frame rails are stored by size, and the artwork can be properly stored in flat files until they are brought out for study or exhibit at a future date.” -Stephanie Garafolo, Curator
By using this system, frames can be reused, and mat boards become not just a border but an intentional design element. I was particularly impressed by the use of uneven, weighted borders and unconventional proportions—what Stephanie describes as “happy accidents.”
Personally, I believe limits are generative. Working within constraints often sparks creative solutions, and visually, this exhibition proved that to be true.
In supporting the preservation of these works, American Frame was able to contribute in a small but meaningful way to a project that honored both the collection and the students learning to care for it.
To the left: Remains of the Villa di Maecenas at Tivoli by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, etching, 1763.
To the right: a medley of works including Benozzo’s Star of Italy by Dr. Allie Terry-Fritsch, colored pencil and gold leaf on paper, 2020.
The Mystery of Dali
Of particular interest to me was the collection of woodblock prints by Salvador Dalí illustrating Dante’s Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise.
As many in the art world know, Dalí signed blank sheets of paper for publishers, creating opportunities for unauthorized reproductions. Determining authenticity is a critical challenge.
Students were tasked with confirming the authenticity of these works through provenance research. They examined paper characteristics, markings, and signatures to determine whether the prints were genuinely signed by Dalí.
To the left: a lesson in art authentication.
To the right: eighteen of the forty-two prints in the BGSU permanent collection from Dante’s Divine Comedy by Salvador Dalí, resin block prints, 1950.
The framing for this display was intentionally simple and uniform. Traditional gallery-style framing allowed the works to function as a cohesive group, with the frame taking a secondary role. Differences in paper tone across the prints were visually unified through consistent framing choices.
Ushering In a New Era
While this exhibition signals a new era for the Fine Arts Center Galleries, it is also grounded in a long tradition of artistic excellence at BGSU.
Through Allie Terry-Fritsch and Stephanie Garafolo’s leadership, paired with a class willing to engage deeply in the full scope of curatorial practice, the exhibition set a tone of energy, professionalism, and possibility.
Italy in the Artist’s Imagination was far more than an academic exercise. It was a living example of what happens when a university invests in opportunity, when students rise to the challenge, and when community partners help create the conditions for art to thrive.
Honoring the founders of the Medici Circle, an important group of patrons at BGSU who established the foundation for funding student scholarships for study abroad. Their legacy lives on.
Exhibition Q&A
Q: Is Italy in the Artist’s Imagination the first fully student-curated exhibition at BGSU?
A: Italy in the Artist’s Imagination initiates a new biennial opportunity for students to stage an exhibition within the Dorothy Uber Bryan Gallery in the BGSU Fine Arts Center. While prior Art History seminar courses included opportunities for student curation, this is the first time students have had access to the permanent collection. The resulting hands-on opportunities for researching, cataloging, and displaying works contributed to a rich learning environment and allowed student-curators to experience the full curation life cycle.
Q: What role did students play in the curatorial and conservation process?
A: Preliminary work by Dr. Terry-Fritsch shaped the conceptual vision for the show and set into motion the process by which works were selected for the exhibition. However, the student-curators contributed to every step of the exhibition development process. This ambitious exhibition was created in a very compressed timeframe, and it required students to quickly launch into key curatorial tasks such as researching the permanent collection, jurying submissions from outside artists, writing interpretive text, and designing the physical layout of works and supporting didactics. Students learned about each facet of the curatorial process in class lectures and worked collaboratively with Dr. Terry-Fritsch to convert theoretical information into practical decisions and development of design strategies. The physical transformation of the gallery into the exhibition space was a joint effort between the students, their professor, and the gallery staff.
As part of the seminar, students also examined the materiality of permanent collections objects and considered aspects like use, deterioration, damage, alteration, and repair. Physical examinations were guided by the Galleries Curator and highlighted legacy challenges in storing and caring for, such as chemical and mechanical damage from overcrowding and the use of inappropriate, acidic enclosures. Fortunately, these discoveries allowed for corrective actions to take place, and students learned about the importance of using acid- and lignin-free materials for storage and display. Two student-curators spent additional time outside of class working with the Galleries Curator and Technician and gained hands-on skills in conservation matting and framing of works.
Q: How does the University approach provenance research and authentication in its permanent collection?
A: Ideally, the provenance and authenticity of works are researched prior to being accepted into the permanent collection; however, it is common for gaps in the documented history of ownership to exist, particularly for works that are centuries old. Continued research often reveals new facets of object history and use, and occasionally, it can fundamentally change how we understand the works we steward.
One of the unique opportunities that this exhibition provided was to engage with a set of works from the permanent collection that had relatively little or no information in the object files. Thus, in class sessions, students were taught how to research and write artist biographies, provide social context for the works, and perform original interpretative analysis. Students then worked independently with archival materials, primary sources, conducted artist interviews, and secondary art-historical publications to create catalogue entries on each work from the permanent collection included in the exhibition, which were then published in the exhibition catalogue and modified as interpretative wall texts.
Q: How does this exhibition reflect a new direction for the Fine Arts Center Galleries?
A: Italy in the Artist's Imagination highlights the critical role that a university gallery, such as the Fine Arts Center Galleries, can play in serving the public good by engaging with key members of our campus community as well as the greater Northwest Ohio region. Drawing on support from the RING Center for Experiential Learning in Art and Design, the exhibition sought to activate the gallery as an experiential learning space, not only for the student-curators enrolled in the Art History Professional Practices seminar, but also for the larger body of students, faculty, and staff at the university and the wider public. The exhibition introduced a new focus on outreach programming to connect diverse publics to the Fine Arts Galleries. Additional opportunities were provided to through a series of lectures organized by Dr. Terry-Fritsch and led by Toledo Museum of Art professionals throughout the semester to learn more about the field of Art History, Museum Studies, and Art Conservation.
Q: Why are partnerships with organizations like American Frame important to arts education at BGSU?
A: As a public university for the public good, BGSU is committed to serving our students and our communities. Keeping exhibitions and events at the Fine Arts Center Galleries free for students, faculty, and staff at the university, as well as members of the greater public, is one way in which we reduce barriers to entry and serve the broadest audience possible. Partnerships provide essential support to the Galleries and help us to fulfill our mission of making fine art and arts education accessible regardless of an individual’s means.
Q: Why was archival framing such an important part of this exhibition?
A: Many of the works selected for exhibition had never been displayed within the gallery and therefore required matting and framing. While the first priority was to prepare selected works on paper to withstand the rigors of exhibition, this also provided an opportunity to reconsider the long-term storage of the collection. Mats aid in facilitating the safe storage and handling of works on paper even when not on view, such as when providing research access to students and faculty. However, this is only true when appropriate materials are utilized. Working with American Frame ensured the Fine Arts Center Galleries had access to high-quality resources that contribute positively to the preservation lifespan of the print collection and other works on paper.
Q: How did framing influence the exhibition’s visual design?
A: While the overall visual design of the exhibition was determined independent of specific framing considerations, the use of color blocking throughout the galleries provided additional contrast with the black frames selected from American Frame. This was especially notable in the section featuring eighteen of Salvador Dalí's prints from the Divine Comedy series, all of which were framed in the black modular system and placed against a color-flooded wall featuring terracotta.