Academy Art Museum Announces Bugatti: Reaching for Perfection

The Academy Art Museum announces its most ambitious exhibition to date, Bugatti: Reaching for Perfection, opening with a special gala preview on December 5, 2024. The exhibition will open to the public on December 6, 2024, and run through April 13, 2025. It will feature rare automobiles, sculpture, and furniture by the Bugatti family, along with other objects and ephemera related to the renowned marque. In addition to furniture borrowed from the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Art, Bugatti: Reaching for Perfection will showcase works from two important private collections never-before seen together: eight bronze sculptures from the Arsidi-Scuderi Collection of Lugano, Switzerland, and five vintage Bugatti cars and other automotive elements from the North Collection of the Eastern Shore, Maryland. Highlights include two grand prix race cars, two Type 57 touring cars, and a miniature “Baby.”

A Multigenerational Story of Modern Creativity and Innovation

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. 

Carlo Bugatti, Hall Bench, c. 1890s. Wood, parchment, copper, brass, paint, leather. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Gift of Lloyd and BarbaraMacklowe. 89.141. Photo: Troy Wilkinson. © Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

Rembrandt had a tragically brief career as a sculptor, producing deeply empathetic and impressionistic portraits of animals. Ettore, meanwhile, became a celebrated automobile designer and manufacturer. According to automotive scholar and guest curator Ken Gross, Bugatti’s technical advances were inextricably linked to—even indistinguishable from—their formal beauty: “Everything about Bugatti was artistic: the cars, their advertising, and the enduring joie de vivre associated with the marque.” The cars that he and his elder son, Jean (1909-1939), designed came to epitomize the speed and dynamism of modernity.

Rembrandt Bugatti, Leaping Kangaroo, 1907. Arsidi-Scuderi Colleciton. Photo: Peter Harholdt.

Visitors to the exhibition will be able to immerse themselves in the Bugatti family story as they view the furniture, cars, sculptures, photographs, advertisements, and other ephemera. These pieces and the stories behind them will provide a deeper understanding of the family’s creative passions, their pursuit of perfection, and their place within the history of cultural modernity. “Although Ettore Bugatti famously declared, ‘Perfection is never reached,’ he obsessively pursued it throughout his career,” said senior curator Lee Glazer. 

1936 Bugatti Type 57 Atalante, Chassis no. 57456. Private Collection. Photo: Peter Harholdt

Expanding Access and Audience

Maryland’s Eastern Shore is a major destination for car collectors, thanks to the annual St. Michaels Concours d’Elegance. Bugatti: Reaching for Perfection aims to attract concours attendees and car collectors who are not necessarily regular Academy Art Museum visitors. Special “hoods up” days and other programs will offer behind-the-scenes experiences and special access to subject-matter experts.  

The exhibition supports the museum’s commitment to education, outreach, and inspiration for all. With no admission fee, Bugatti: Reaching for Perfection will be accessible not only to car enthusiasts and collectors, but to art and design lovers, and the broader community, including students and residents of the mid-Atlantic region and the Eastern Shore.

Save the Date

The exhibition opens with a gala preview on December 5, 2024, and will open to the public on December 6, 2024 and run through April 13, 2025.

Sponsors

We are grateful to the following organizations for making this exhibition possible. Preliminary sponsors include lead sponsor Blue Point Hospitality with additional support from Arlington Associates, Benson & Mangold, Boxwood Estate Winery, Brown Advisory, Chuck Mangold, Jr./Benson and Mangold, Easton Utilities, Eben Finney/Brown Advisory, Grayce B. Kerr Foundation, J.P. Morgan Private Bank, McHale Landscape Design, Shore United, The Oaks, Tidewater Inn and Wye Financial.