Don’t Miss: Master Drawings New York this weekend!

There may be a lot happening this weekend post-inauguration, but one event you don’t want to miss is Master Drawings New York. It kicks off on Saturday, January 21st, with twenty four of the world’s leading art dealers exhibiting rare drawings, watercolors and oil sketches by such major names as Cocteau, Degas, Delacroix, Gainsborough, Gauguin, Hockney, Klimt, Marsh, Picasso, van Gogh, and Vasari.

The event includes pop-up presentations by dealers from London, Paris, Florence, and Vienna, and special exhibitions mounted in private gallery spaces by top New York specialists. Many exhibitors will unveil drawings not seen on the market for decades.

“Drawings are often called the first draft of art history—and that’s the excitement, really,” says Crispian Riley-Smith, MDNY Director and co-founder. “Simply by studying strokes on a page, one can become privy to an artist’s first intention. And because drawings have been less systematically documented over the centuries than paintings, unknown works still surface with some regularity.”

Among the highlights: At the Academy Mansion on East 63rd Street Christopher Bishop of Norwalk, Connecticut will showcase Italian drawings including an ink- and chalk-drawn piece by Jacopo Bassano (1510-1592), a pupil of Veronese and considered one of the great painters of the 16th century. In another room, James Faber of Day & Faber, London displays an ink drawing by the Italian Baroque painter Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, known as Il Guercino. The mansion also features presentations by Pandora Old Masters, New York, and Charles Beddington and Martyn Gregory, both from London.

At the Dickinson Gallery Stephen Ongpin from London will exhibit a wide selection of drawings including Paul Gauguin’s study of a Breton woman; Pablo Picasso’s signed nude in red pencil; and Eugène Delacroix’s watercolor of a Moroccan man.  At Didier Aaron, there will be a pen and ink drawing by Giorgio Vasari, the 16th century Italian painter, architect, and writer best known for his important Lives of the Artists. David Tunick, a returning exhibitor, is showing Vincent van Gogh’s “La Plaine de la Crau,” an ink over pencil drawing. Tunick also will exhibit a blue-pencil portrait by Gustav Klimt along with several other Vienna Secession drawings unseen and off of the market, for 37 years.

Mattia and Maria Novella Romano will showcase pieces from the 16th century through the mid-20th centuries at Arader Galleries, including an ink drawing by Umberto Brunelleschi (1879-1949).  Wienerroither & Kohlbacher, exhibiting at Shepherd W&K Galleries, is showing an Egon Schiele piece. At the Jill Newhouse Gallery there will be a selection of 19th century French drawings, including Edgar Degas’s Dancer (Melina Darde), a black chalk drawing heightened with white on paper—an iconic image in French art, only recently acquired by Newhouse from a private collection.

A special symposium will take place  on January 24, 2017 4:30 pm to 6 pm.
tiled Drawings, Connoisseurship, and Scholarship Today: Discussion with the Editorial Board of Master Drawings

Exhibit hours:  Saturday, January 21, to Saturday 28, 2017
Hours: 10 am to 6 pm daily, except Sunday, 2 pm to 6 pm Admission: Free

For more information go to Master Drawings New York