Jane Fortune (1942–2018)

Jane Fortune was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on August 7, 1942. She was educated at Western College for Women in Ohio and Rosemont College. She spent her junior year studying art in Florence, Italy. She became a philanthropist. She founded a nonprofit foundation called Advancing Women Artists to show more find and salvage art created by women between the 16th and 20th centuries. She wrote several books about Florence including Invisible Women: Forgotten Artists of Florence and When the World Answered: Florence, Women Artists and the 1966 Flood. Both were adapted into PBS documentary films. In 2015, she received the Fiorino d'Oro for revealing part of Florence's history to its own people. She died from ovarian cancer on September 23, 2018 at the age of 76. (Bowker Author Biography) show less