Eike Schmidt
Art historian, born in 1968 in Freiburg imBreisgau (Germany).
In 2009 he passed with distinction the PhD in art history atRuprecht-Karls-Universität,with a dissertation on “The Medici’s collection of ivory sculptures in the 16thand 17thcenturies”.
Hehas worked and lived in Italy for a long time, especially in Florence, where from 1994 to 2001 he was scholar and researcher at the DeutschesKunsthistorischesInstitut.
In 1997 hewas awarded the ‘Nicoletta Quinto’prizeby the Premiointernazionale Galileo Galilei Foundation of Pisa.
From 2001 to 2006 he was curator and researcher at the National Gallery of Art in Washington.
From 2004 to 2008he participated in the research project entitled “Women at the MediceanCourt”,at the BibliotecaHertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History Library, Rome.
From 2006 to 2008he was curator in the Department of Sculptures& Decorative Arts at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.
From 2008 to 2009 he was Directorand headof the Department of European Sculpture&Works of Artat Sotheby’s, London.
From 2008 to 2015he was memberof the Scientific Committee of the Sculpture Journal, London.
From 2009 to 2015he was curator and head of the Department ofDecorative Arts, Textiles & Sculptureat the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.
From 2011 to2015he was member of the Scientific Committee of TEFAF (The European Fine Art Fair), Maastricht, Netherlands.
Since November 2015he isthe Directorof the Uffizi Galleries.
Internationally renowned expert in Florentine art,he has published several monographies and dozens of essays.
He has received the Awards ‘Museum Acquisitions of the Year’ Awards by the Apollo magazine seven times, for artworks acquired for the J. Paul Getty Museum and Minneapolis Institute of Arts.
In 2017 he was honoured with the ‘Wooow’ prizeby the students from Novara (Italy) and the ‘Excellency Award’ by the Foundation for Italian Art and Culture (New York).
Since 2017 he is honorary professor at the Humboldt-Universität in Berlin.
In 2018, BlouinArtinfoincluded Eike Schmidt in the list of the ten best museum directors in the world, for the excellent results achieved in managing the Uffizi Galleries.
