Drawn Toward the Avant-Garde: Nineteenth and Twentieth-Century French Drawings from the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Copenhagen

Guest Curator: Dr. Jan Würtz Frandsen
Curator in the Department of Prints and Drawings, Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Copenhagen

This exhibition is drawn from the oldest documented graphics collection in the world -- that of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. Begun in 1521 when Albrecht Dürer donated his own drawings to King Christian II to become part of the royal collections, the graphics collection now contains more than 80,000 graphic works. Most of the drawings in this exhibition have rarely been seen outside Denmark, and thus provide a rare opportunity to experience some of Denmark's little-known artistic treasures.

The drawings selected cover every major artist and movement in French art history from the early 1800s to the mid-20th century. Highlights of the 19th-century works include a splendid portrait drawn by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres in Rome around 1815, Auguste Rodin's "black" drawings from around 1880, a colorful Toulouse-Lautrec sketch from his series of the Cirque Médrano, a brush drawing by Manet, and a Degas portrait. The Barbizon school is represented in works by Constant Troyon, Millet, and Rousseau, and the flourishing of Impressionism is seen in drawings by Berthe Morisot and a delicate fan design by Paul Gauguin. Artists from around the world came to Paris in the early 20th century to define French Modernism, beautifully captured here in works by Picasso, Juan Gris, Modigliani, and Giacometti.