Sveva’s Recapitulation Series featured in national magazine

Sveva Caetani photographed by Heidi Thompson

The Caetani Centre is pleased to announce that an abridged version of an article about Sveva Caetani’s Recapitulation Series has been printed in a national Italian-Canadian publication.

Written by art historian Adriana A. Davies, the original article, titled “Symbolism,” was originally presented to the Association of Italian-Canadian Writers Conference in Toronto on September 28, 2024 and was recently published as the lead feature in the December 19, 2024 edition of Accenti Magazine at https://accenti.ca/sveva-caetani-and-her-recapitulation-series/

This is the second article that Davies has had published about Caetani’s Recapitulation Series, a collection of 47 watercolour paintings that Caetani completed before her death in 1994. The series in now under the ownership of the Caetani Cultural Centre Society.

A previous article appeared in the BC Review back in June, 2024.

Davies, who also presented a talk at the Caetani Centre last June, is currenty working on a book about Sveva Caetani’s legacy and work.

Davies, who was born in Italy and grew up in Canada, is an Order of Canada, Cavaliere d'Italia and Queen's Diamond and Platinum Jubilee Medals recipient. She has a doctorate from the University of London and has worked as a writer, editor, curator, fine and decorative arts specialist, and cultural executive director. 

She was science editor of The Canadian Encyclopedia and also created the Alberta Online Encyclopedia (www.albertasource.ca), comprising 84 multimedia websites (33 with Indigenous content). She was involved in the Canadian Museums Association and Assembly of First Nations Task Force on Museums and First Peoples; implemented three Alberta Museums Association symposia on the same subject the last being, “Re-inventing the Museum on Native Terms”; and created three internships to engage Indigenous young people in content creation for the Alberta Online Encyclopedia. 

Her publications include The Dictionary of British Portraiture (two volumes); From Realism to Abstraction: The Art of J. B. Taylor; The Rise and Fall of Emilio Picariello; The Frontier of Patriotism: Alberta and the First World War (co-editor and contributor); From Sojourners to Citizens: Alberta’s Italian History; poetry anthology Changing My Skin: Dark Elegies and Other Poems; and memoir My Theatre of Memory: A Life in Words.