This exhibition highlights more than 150 master drawings from the Thaw Collection, one of the world?s finest private collections containing over 400 sheets. Assembled over the last fifty years, and made a promised gift to the Morgan in 1975, the collection has now been given in full to the museum by Life Trustee Eugene V. Thaw and his wife, Clare. 'Drawn to Greatness' focuses on pivotal artists and key moments in the history of draftsmanship. Works by major masters from the Renaissance to the modern era will be on view, including Mantegna, Rubens, Rembrandt, Canaletto, Piranesi, Watteau, Fragonard, Goya, Ingres, Turner, Daumier, Redon, Degas, Cézanne, Gauguin, van Gogh, Matisse, Picasso, and Pollock. 00Exhibition: Morgan Library and Museum, New York, USA (29.09.2017-07..01.2018) / Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, USA (03.02.-29.04.2018).

The Staatliche Graphische Sammlung in Munich houses one of the finest and most famous collections of drawings and prints in Germany, with holdings of around 400,000 works ranging from the fifteenth century to modernity. Published to accompany an exhibition at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York, 100 Master Drawings from Munich comprises lush full-color illustrations of over one hundred of the museum's works of art. Demonstrating the impressive depth and breadth of works owned by the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, the works in this volume range from rough preparatory sketches to meticulously executed studies and encompass a variety of media, including silverpoint, chalk, ink, and aquarelle. Among the many extraordinary pieces are Old Dutch and German prints, nineteenth-century German drawings, and works by Dürer and Rembrandt. But equally not to be missed are the many compelling works of contemporary graphic art for which the museum is best known.

Accompanying an exhibition at the Cleveland Museum of Art last fall and now at the Dahesh Museum in New York, this catalog focuses upon the French drawings in Muriel Butkin's highly specialized collection which she has promised to the Cleveland Museum. To assemble her diverse yet nicely integrated set of drawings, Butkin started buying 18th-century French drawings when they were affordable. In the mid-1970s, with the guidance of art historian Gabriel Weisberg, she expanded her collection to include 19th-century French drawings. These drawings were counter to the mainstream impressionist and postimpressionist taste of the time and focused more on academic French subject matter such as life drawings, portraits, or compositional studies. In the preface, Butkin herself reinforces her taste by saying that drawings are much more personal and spontaneous than paintings, often demonstrating the artistic process. Foster, curator of drawings at the Cleveland Museum, and other scholars present a well-researched volume that contributes new information to a very specialized field of art history. It is greatly disappointing, however, that the bulk of the reproductions are in black and white, often missing the subtly colored tones in many of the drawings. Nonetheless, this is recommended for museum and academic libraries that support graduate programs in art history. 183 b/w illustrations

The outstanding collection of French old master drawings held in Washington's National Gallery of Art, represents in remarkable richness and breadth the history of French draftsmanship before 1800. Showcasing for the first time the heart of this outstanding body of work, Renaissance to Revolution celebrates the singular originality, elegance and spirit of French draftsmanship.

"Accompanying an exhibition in honor of Philippe de Montebello, Director Emeritus of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, this engaging book examines the influence of music and theater on the art of Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721). Fifteen major paintings and a number of drawings by Watteau that illustrate the connections between painting and the performing arts in Paris are explored. In addition, drawings and prints by other 18th-century artists featuring musical or theatrical subjects and objects and musical instruments are included."--Publisher description.

"[The author] traces the full arc of Thoreau’s life, from his early days in the intellectual hothouse of Concord, when the American experiment still felt fresh and precarious, and 'America was a family affair, earned by one generation and about to pass to the next.' By the time he died in 1862, at only forty-four years of age, Thoreau had witnessed the transformation of his world from a community of farmers and artisans into a bustling, interconnected commercial nation. What did that portend for the contemplative individual and abundant, wild nature that Thoreau celebrated? Drawing on Thoreau’s copious writings, published and unpublished, [the author] presents a Thoreau vigorously alive in all his quirks and contradictions: the young man shattered by the sudden death of his brother; the ambitious Harvard College student; the ecstatic visionary who closed Walden with an account of the regenerative power of the Cosmos. We meet the man whose belief in human freedom and the value of labor made him an uncompromising abolitionist; the solitary walker who found society in nature, but also found his own nature in the society of which he was a deeply interwoven part. And, running through it all, Thoreau the passionate naturalist, who, long before the age of environmentalism, saw tragedy for future generations in the human heedlessness around him."--