Community Partners:
The Vernon Museum, Vernon, BC
http://www.okanaganinfo.com/museum/museum1.htm
The Vernon Art Gallery, Vernon, BC
http://www.galleries.bc.ca/vernon/

Project Directors:
Ron Candy, Vernon Museum
Email: Mail@vernon.museum.bc.ca
Dr. Catherine Harding, History in Art, University of Victoria
Email: charding@finearts.uvic.ca

Project Co-Facilitator:
Liz Allardice, Vernon Art Gallery

Student Researchers:
CURA Student Assistantship: Karen Avery, graduate student, History in Art
Directed Studies: Melissa Larkin, Sarah Milligan and Carla Yarish, History in Art
Youth Community Action Program: Caroline Zinz, Vernon Secondary School
HRDC Summer Career Placement: Melissa Larkin, History in Art
UVic Arts & Writing Co-op: Carla Yarish, History in Art

Collaborator:
Bryan Ryley, Okanagan University College

This CURA project is based on Caetani family collections in the Vernon Museum and the Vernon Art Gallery. Leone Caetani, Duke of Sermoneta, his wife Ofelia Fabiani, their daughter Sveva, and the household companion Miss Jüül emigrated from Italy to Vernon in 1921. Leone Caetani, from an aristocratic family with a well documented lineage dating to the Middle Ages, was an Italian politician and a renowned Islamic scholar. His daughter Sveva, late in her life, emerged as a remarkable artist and teacher. She died in Vernon in 1994.

The Museum houses extensive holdings of family archives and artifacts that document the history and contribution of the family to the community. The research project at the Museum provides an opportunity to add a fascinating story to the larger chronicle of immigrant families in British Columbia in the early part of the twentieth century.

The Art Gallery collection includes artworks by Sveva Caetani and her artist friends in Vernon. The Gallery's component of the project centres on Caetani's evolution as an artist and teacher. Both institutions will host exhibitions: a celebratory and educational exhibition at the Museum on the family history and an exhibition featuring Sveva Caetani's work at the Gallery. A catalogue will accompany the art exhibition and, if possible, a small catalogue will be produced for the family history project. A virtual exhibit will be developed for the existing web site of one of the institutions.

Untitled paintings by Sveva Caetani in the collection of the Vernon Art Gallery

Karen Avery, Ron Candy, Barbara Bell, & Dr. Catherine Harding at the Vernon Museum Archives

Karen Avery and Dr. Catherine Harding discover old treasures