Bugatti: Reaching for Perfection
Gala Preview: December 5, 2024
December 6, 2024 - April 13, 2025
Bugatti: Reaching for Perfection
Gala preview
December 5, 2024
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Featuring loans from two important private family collections never before seen together, along with pieces from the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, this bijoux exhibition of cars, sculpture, and furniture will illuminate the multigenerational ambition and creativity of the Bugatti. Among the highlights are eight bronze sculptures from the Arsidi-Scuderi Collection of Lugano, Switzerland, and five rare Bugatti cars from an Eastern Shore collection: two grand prix race cars, two Type 57 touring cars, and a miniature “Baby.”
The exhibition will explore the rich artistic and technological legacies of the peripatetic Bugatti family, beginning with patriarch Carlo Bugatti (1856-1940). His fin-de-siècle furniture designs, which debuted at international expositions in London, Paris, Milan, and Turin, are noteworthy for their fanciful combination of materials: ebonized wood inlaid with copper, brass, ivory, mother-of-pearl, and vellum, which he often decorated with leather tassels, geometric marquetry, and painted designs. Sons Ettore (1881-1947) and Rembrandt (1884-1916) inherited their father’s artistic passion but pursued different paths. Rembrandt had a tragically brief career as a sculptor, producing deeply empathetic and impressionistic portraits of animals. Ettore, meanwhile, became a celebrated automobile designer. Although he famously declared, “Perfection is never reached,” he pursued it throughout his career. The cars that he and his elder son, Jean (1909-1939), designed came to epitomize the speed and dynamism of modernity. But the cars were much more than machines. As automotive scholar and guest curator Ken Gross has observed, “Everything about Bugatti was artistic: the cars, their advertising, and the enduring joie de vivre associated with the marque.”
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1936 Bugatti Type 57 Atalante Chassis no. 57456, engine no. 392. Private Collection. Photo: Peter Harholdt.
Rembrandt Bugatti, Two Panthers Walking, 1904. Bronze. A. A. Hébrard. Arsidi Scuderi Colleciton. Photo: Peter Harholdt.
Carlo Bugatti, Hall Bench, c. 1890s. Wood, parchment, copper, brass, paint, leather, 36 3/8 x35 1/2 x 16 3/4 in. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Gift of Lloyd and Barbara Macklowe. 89.141. Photo: Troy Wilkinson. © Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
Image Gallery
Rembrandt Bugatti, Leaping Kangaroo, 1907.Bronze. A. A. Hébrard. Arsidi Scuderi Collection. Photo: Peter Harholdt.
Carlo Bugatti, Hall Bench, c. 1890s. Wood, parchment, copper, brass, paint, leather, 36 3/8 x35 1/2 x 16 3/4 in. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Gift of Lloyd and Barbara Macklowe. 89.141. Photo: Troy Wilkinson. © Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
Order the Book
Bugatti: Reaching for Perfection
Essays by Lee Glazer, Ken Gross, and Véronique Fromanger
Featuring essays by leading scholars and dazzling illustrations of Bugatti cars, sculpture, and furniture, augmented with period photographs, advertisements, and other ephemera, Bugatti: Reaching for Perfection provides lasting documentation of an ambitious exhibition and a deeper contextualization of the biographical and cultural stories it explores.
Sponsors
The Academy Art Museum gratefully acknowledges the many individuals and businesses whose generous support contributed to Bugatti: Reaching for Perfection.
Bugatti Royale Circle
MaryLou and Joseph Peters, Co-Chairs
Donna and Jim Alpi
Kelly and Brent Asplundh
Glenn and Kimberly Baker
Denise and John Bode
Julie and Chuck Callahan
Claire and Warren Cox
Jill deTemple and Gordon O’Brien
Maxine and Jim Farrell
Maureen and Robert Fogarty
Catherine Glose and Heather Klink
Denise Grant and Franklin Raines
Sally Heckman and Tom Mitchell
Cathy and Thomas Hill
Heather M. Johnson
Bette Kenzie
Sachiko Kuno
Christine and Donald Martin
Elaine and Tony Masso
Catherine Collins McCoy
Maxine Millar
Cecilia and Robert Nobel
Hon. John C. North II
Debbie and Michael Potter
Rita and Robert Reaves
Alexa and Tom Seip
Susan and Jack Stoltz
Beverly and Richard Tilghman
Holly and Gary Townsend
Nanny Trippe
Terry and Bill Witowsky
Reaching for Perfection Committee
Tom Seip, Co-Chair
Holly Martin Townsend, Co-Chair
Donna Alpi
Robert Fogarty
Jim Harris
Chuck Mangold, Jr.
Christine Martin
MaryLou Peters
Nancy Trippe
Christopher Walsh
Donald Wooters
Sponsors
Atalante
Bluepoint Hospitality
Keith Stoltz
Brescia
St. Michaels Concours d’Elegance on Chesapeake Bay
West & Callahan
Chiron
Boxwood Estate Winery
Anne Marie and Jay Borneman
Brown Advisory/Eben and Sara Finney
Grayce B. Kerr Fund, Inc.
Chuck Mangold Jr., Associate Broker at Benson and Mangold
Comber McHugh
Jill and Jack Meyerhoff
J.P. Morgan Private Bank
Shore United/Wye Financial
Tracy and Scott Wagner, The Oaks Waterfront Hotel
Wylder Hotel
Veyron
Arlington Associates, Inc.
AWD, PC Certified Public Accountants
Benson and Mangold Real Estate
Coard Benson, Benson and Mangold Real Estate
Campbell’s Boatyards and Yacht Sales
Carolyne Hyde
Doc Keane and Marc Bertinelli, Washington Fine Properties
Stephanie and John McGowan
Susan and Richard Granville
Tidewater Inn
Additional Support:
Bartlett, Griffin and Vermilye
Christy and Dirck Barlett
Caroline Boutte and Peter Gallagher
Kate and Paul Cox
Cynthia Egan
Eastern Shore Tents and Events
Eastern Shore Title Company
Easton Utilities
Nancy and Joe Hollingsworth
Gerry and Steve Leder
McHale Landscape Design
Christy Osborne
Melissa and John Pflieger
Debra and Anthony Principi
Dale and Robert Rauch
Mary Ann Schindler
Sullivan Surgery & Spa
Martha and Fred Suss
Tred Avon Family Wealth
Windswept Clothiers
Wishing Well Liquors
Will Wrightson