Dr. Eike Schmidt has been the Director of the Museum and Royal Park of Capodimonte since January 2024 and works closely with the AFC.

Dr. Schmidt is a specialist in Italian Renaissance and Baroque art, with a focus on sculpture and the Medici family collections. He holds a PhD (2009) from the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg. Schmidt has worked at various American institutions, including as Research Curator at the National Gallery of Art (2001-2006); Curator in the Sculpture and Decorative Arts Department at the J. Paul Getty Museum (2006-2008); and James Ford Bell Curator and Director of Sculpture, Applied Arts and Textiles at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (2009-2015). As a curator, Schmidt was noted for his acquisition of pieces of particular art historical significance, which in eight instances received the title of ‘acquisition of the year’ by Apollo magazine. In 2008-2009 Schmidt was Director of the Department of European Sculpture at Sotheby’s in London and from 2010-2015 he served a jury member for the TEFAF art fair in Maastricht. In 2015 Schmidt was appointed Director of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, where he served two terms. He oversaw the administrative merger of the Uffizi Gallery with the Palazzo Pitti, and the Boboli Gardens. His successful directorship earned him an Excellency Award from the Foundation for Italian Art and Culture in New York (2017). He currently serves as the Chairman of the Board of the Fondo Edifici di Culto. Schmidt has more than 200 publications to his name, among which are: Collecting sculpture in early modern Europe (2008), The Color of Life: Polychromy in Sculpture from Antiquity to the Present (2008), Diafane Passioni: Avori barocchi dalle corti europee (2013), The Hours of Night and Day: a rediscovered cycle of bronze reliefs by Giovanni Casini and Pietro Cipriani (2014), Bronze, Boxwood and Ivory in the Robert H. Smith Collection of Renaissance Sculpture (2015), Plasmato dal fuoco: la scultura in bronzo nella Firenze degli ultimi Medici (2019).

At Capodimonte, Schmidt intends to raise the profile of the museum and increase international visitor numbers. He will continue the refurbishment plans started by previous director Dr. Bellenger, including the museum’s transition to sustainable energy. This project will be carried out in phases and is projected to be finished in December 2025.