Designing the exhibition <i>Donatello: Sculpting the Renaissance</i>

The Victoria and Albert Museum’s exhibition Donatello: Sculpting the Renaissance (11 February–11 June 2023) was held in the museum’s largest exhibition space, the Sainsbury Gallery. Taking the Brunelleschian architecture and urban fabric of the city of Florence as the principal sources of inspiration, the design team created spacious viewing environments that subtly distinguished between individual sections of the exhibition while maintaining open vistas through the gallery. Lighting the breadth of Donatello’s work was a particular challenge, as was maintaining minimal supporting architecture that could nonetheless accommodate monumental works. The simultaneously open and intimate viewing environments achieved by the design were highlighted by viewers and critics alike as being particularly successful. In January 2025 lead designer Sam Brown and lead curator Peta Motture, in conversation with Whitney Kerr-Lewis, co-curator of the exhibition, and Rachel Boyd, Motture’s successor as senior curator of Renaissance sculpture at the V&amp;A, reflected on their experience working on the design of Donatello .