Master Drawings from the Yale University Art Gallery

June 1 - August 12, 2007

Continuing its Summer of Masterworks, the Blanton Museum of Art at The University of Texas at Austin is pleased to present Master Drawings from the Yale University Art Gallery, on view through August 12, 2007. Organized by the Yale University Art Gallery, Master Drawings provides a compelling survey of European draftsmanship from the late fifteenth to the mid-nineteenth century, featuring a substantial number of works that have never been seen by the general public.

Including masterworks by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, François Boucher, Edgar Degas, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri), Jacob Jordaens, Claude Lorrain, Domenico Tiepolo, and Jean-Antoine Watteau, as well as by many lesser-known artists, the exhibition will travel to the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago (October 4, 2007-January 13, 2008) following its presentation at the Blanton. The final venue is the Yale University Art Gallery (February 19-June 8, 2008).

Master Drawings is the first full exploration of the breadth and depth of the Gallery's collection of European drawings since 1970. Selected from the Gallery's holdings of more than one thousand old master drawings, the exhibition features drawings from all of Europe, with France, Italy, and the Netherlands prominently represented. With almost forty percent of the works on view acquired in the last thirty seven years — including eighteen drawings acquired within the past five — the exhibition provides viewers with an up-to-date look at this significant collection.

The exhibition and its accompanying publication have been organized by Suzanne Boorsch, the Robert L. Solley Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs; and John Marciari, the Nina and Lee Griggs Associate Curator of Early European Art, both of the Yale University Art Gallery. Project director and exhibition curator for the Blanton's presentation of the exhibition is Cheryl Snay, Assistant Curator of Prints and Drawings, Blanton Museum of Art.

Summer of Masterworks Programs and Events

Publication
Master Drawings from the Yale University Art Gallery is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, co-published by the Gallery and Yale University Press. The 296-page book includes a foreword by Jock Reynolds, the Henry J. Heinz Director of the Yale University Art Gallery; an introduction by the curators; and text on individual works, mostly by Ms. Boorsch and Mr. Marciari, with a small number written by experts on a given artist or by Yale graduate students working under the direction of the curators. The catalogue presents new scholarship, including the re-attribution of works in the collection, and features over one hundred large-scale color illustrations. To order a catalogue, please contact the Blanton Museum Shop at (512) 475-6406 or e-mail aklossner@mail.utexas.edu.

Master Drawings from the Yale University Art Gallery is organized by the Yale University Art Gallery and funded, in part, through the Florence B. Selden Fund, the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, Mr. and Mrs. Bruce B. Dayton, and Dr. and Mrs. Edmund P. Pillsbury.

The presentation of the exhibition at the Blanton Museum of Art is made possible by the Inman Foundation.