Ellsworth Kelly (b. 1923), Banana Leaf, 1992, Pencil on paper, 20 x 30-1/4", Private collection, © Ellsworth Kelly.

The Morgan Library & Museum
225 Madison Avenue
at 36th Street
212-685-0008
New York
Drawing Connections: Baselitz, Kelly, Penone, Rockburne,
and the Old Masters
October 12, 2007-January 6, 2008

In an exhibition that links the old and new in unique and unexpected ways, four renowned contemporary artists have chosen works from The Morgan Library and Museum’s superb collection of old master drawings to compare and contrast with works from their own hand. The show, featuring the artists Georg Baselitz (b. 1938), Ellsworth Kelly (b. 1923), Giuseppe Penone (b. 1947), and Dorothea Rockburne (b. 1932), demonstrates not only what contemporary art owes to the art of the past but also how our interpretation of earlier art is indebted to contemporary practices.

The artists invited to take part in this project responded enthusiastically to the opportunity to present their work alongside works by some of the greatest masters of the past. The international selection of contemporary artists is intended to reflect radically different approaches to drawing today. A common point among these artists is the centrality of drawing to their work and a profound interest in the art of the past.

Drawing Connections differs from other artist-curated shows in that it focuses on drawing. This medium presents a greater continuity through the ages than painting or sculpture, especially when considered from the point of view of the artists themselves. The exhibition includes about fifty works, half from the Morgan’s collection, and the other half on loan from the artists and New York private collections. Each artist was given carte blanche to select seven or eight sheets from the Morgan’s collection of more than 12,000 drawings, ranging from Mantegna, Leonardo, and Rembrandt, to Degas, Cézanne, and Picasso. The contemporary works (six by each artist) were selected by the artists in collaboration with Isabelle Dervaux, curator of modern and contemporary drawings at the Morgan and the curator of the exhibition.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the exhibition is that artists as different as Baselitz and Rockburne have both chosen to focus on 16th-century Italian mannerism. Baselitz, who has been collecting mannerist prints for many years, selected drawings by Parmigianino (1503-1540), an artist well represented in the Morgan collection. The elongated proportions and odd poses of Parmigianino’s figures, as in The Virgin Seated with Yarn Winder, and the Infant Christ Embracing St. John, echo Baselitz’s own expressive deformations of the body, notably in his “fracture” drawings of the mid-1960s, such as Divided Hero. Because mannerism played an important role in Baselitz’s development in the 1960s, the exhibition includes several of his drawings from that decade.

Dorothea Rockburne’s choice of 16th-century Italian art relates to her interest in perspective and complex spatial structures. In the exhibition she pairs a contorted figure by Tintoretto (1518-1594) with a work from her 1970s Conservation Class series, generated by folding paper according to a mathematical rule. Crediting mannerism as a source for her recent work based on astronomy, she also proposes parallels between powerful heads by Domenico Beccafumi (1486-1551) and her colorful and luminous evocations of the cosmos.

In keeping with his own graphic production dominated by line drawing, Ellsworth Kelly selected old master drawings that present a clear linear emphasis and great economy of means. He favored preparatory sketches, which expose the artist’s methods and processes, over finished drawings. His section of the exhibition proposes fascinating pairings of some of Kelly’s most deceptively simple drawings with works by Rubens (1577-1640), Watteau (1684-1721), van Gogh (1853-1890), and Matisse (1869-1954).

Attracted to the act of drawing as the expression of a singular vision of the world, Penone organized his selections of drawings from the Morgan into three groups corresponding to three concepts relevant to his own work. Bridging geographical and chronological boundaries, his groups bring together, for instance, works by Mantegna (1431-1506), Dürer (1471-1528), and Perugino (1450-1523) with Penone’s own The Imprint of Drawing, Right Ring Finger. In all of them the artist’s highly controlled technique is put to the service of an objective rendering of the world. By contrast, in a group of drawings by Bernini (1598-1680), Klimt (1862-1918), and Cézanne (1839-1906), displayed together with Penone’s Skin of Graphite “Reflection of Jade”, the artist abandons himself to his material to suggest the sensuality of nature.

 

Dorothea Rockburne (b. 1934), Conservation Class #9, 1973, Strathmore 2 ply and graphite, 341/4 x 70", Collection of Christine Williams , © 2007 Dorothea Rockburne, Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.