GATEWAY TO ADVENTURE - 50 YEARS OF D&D ART

Lucca Comics & Games :

Lucca, Chiesa dei Servi from 26 October to 3 November 2024

  Tuesday 9th July 2024, Florence, Italy: This year Lucca Comics & Games will be hosting a special exhibition, ‘GATEWAY TO ADVENTURE’, celebrating 50 years of D&D artwork. The prestigious and sacred setting of the Chiesa dei Servi will host the exhibition with over 100 original works by artists who have shaped the history of D&D. The exhibit will be curated by Jon Peterson, one of the most authoritative historians of role-playing and wargaming, and art historian Jessica Lee Patterson.


On display will be works from the Koder Collection, the world's most complete collection of artworks related to Dungeons & Dragons and fantasy games, assembled over more than two decades. The collection brings together original works of art, both conceptual art and published artworks, created over the last half-century with the aim of conserving them, and in the future founding an institution that will make them accessible to the public, highlighting the impact that this type of art has on popular culture.


“Art has had such a huge impact on the way people view and see fantasy and the ways in which the genre has developed through games and literature. The contribution of artists to the fantasy genre has not always been sufficiently recognised and appreciated. The works of art were fragmented and dispersed, they had to be collected so that people could appreciate them in their historical context. The goal of the collection is to be a real portal to adventure, inviting to the exploration of fantasy art through the lens of D&D" comments Matthew Koder, owner of the collection. 
The Lucca exhibition will see more than 100 pieces on display including original works, memorabilia, rare publications and iconic objects. The retrospective will dive into the last fifty years of D&D art, showcasing how it has spread through society, forever influencing the worlds of gaming and literature and subsequently achieving a global impact. This will echo the famous “butterfly effect” which is the theme of Lucca Comics & Games 2024.


Visitors will be guided on a journey from images of the first versions of the game to the most recent ones, including a series of important works by the "Four Horsemen" of D&D art: Jeff Easley, Larry Elmore, Clyde Caldwell and Keith Parkinson. Among the artists featured in the exhibition are Todd Lockwood, Tim Hildebrandt, Brom, Wayne Reynolds, Robh Ruppel, Rick Berry and many others. Alongside the works of these immortal masters, are the symbolic objects of fifty years spent at the gaming table.


The exhibition will be dedicated both to Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, creators of D&D. The city of Lucca will also name one of the historic dungeons, in homage to Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson and Keith Parkinson, who passed away in 2005.
  See you on October 26th with the official inauguration!
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ABOUT THE CURATORS
Jon Peterson is a role-playing and wargaming historian. He is the author of Playing at the World (2012), The Elusive Shift (2020), and Game Wizards (2021), and provided the images and commentary for Wizards of the Coast's The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons (2024). He is also co-author of the books Dungeons & Dragons: Art & Arcana (2018) and Lore & Legends (2023), as well as the bestseller Heroes' Feast (2020) and its sequel. (2023), as well as the Deck of Many Morsels (2024). He has also worked on various ancillary projects for Wizards of the Coast, including the guide to Trivial Pursuit: Dungeons & Dragons Ultimate Edition (2022). He has contributed to numerous academic anthologies and lectured on games at UCLA, USC, Stanford and NYU, and has been a guest of honor at numerous industry conventions. He has also contributed to several film and television projects, including his appearance in The Dreams in Gary's Basement (2023, also executive producer) and the television show Heroes' Feast (2024, also associate producer). Since 2022 he has assisted the Koder Collection in cataloging.

Jessica Lee Patterson is an art historian with a PhD in Art History from UC Berkeley. She taught in the Department of Art, Architecture and Art History at UC San Diego for over a decade, first as an assistant, then as an associate professor and department chair. It has developed a curriculum focused primarily on 19th- and 20th-century Asian and modern art, with an emphasis on intercultural encounters. Since 2022, Dr. Patterson has worked full-time cataloging and researching the Koder Collection, developing expertise in role-playing visual culture and fantasy literature from the late 20th century to the present.   MORE INFORMATION:
Full Line Up for Lucca Comics & Games 2024   About Lucca Comics & Games 2024 Lucca Comics & Games is the most important pop culture event in Europe, a unique community event of its kind in the world. The event is dedicated to comics, games, video games, animated cinema, fantasy fiction, illustration and TV series, under the direction of Emanuele Vietina.
  A very rich program divided into 5 days, from 30 October to 3 November, made up of hundreds of events, tournaments, game sessions, exhibitions, concerts, fashion shows, Italian and international guests, but above all a community event created by hundreds of thousands of fans and visitors who meet every year in one of the most evocative historic centers in the world: Lucca. “The largest geek gathering in the West” (Variety), this is Lucca Comics & Games, an event with 58 years of history behind it, dedicated to contemporary pop culture and new mythologies. Community, Inclusion, Discovery, Respect, Gratitude: Lucca Comics & Games has been based on these 5 values ​​for years, shared between authors, audiences, guests and partners.
The 2023 edition ended with 315,470 tickets sold and 741,428 attendances, not counting the over 13,000 accredited professionals.
  Over the years, Lucca Comics & Games has tried to integrate as much as possible into the cultural context of the city, developing formats, proposals, creative and promotional ideas aimed at enhancing the artistic-monumental heritage of Lucca, enhancing these riches within the exhibition offer and cultural aspect of the event, experimenting with the contamination of different languages ​​and media, in the name of a unique transmedia event in the world. The walls, the squares, the historic buildings, the medieval alleys and the mysterious undergrounds welcome the participants, the great sagas and all the partners of the event who together make up the large community of Lucca Comics & Games, ready to live an unparalleled experience .