Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Drawn to Greatness: Master Drawings from the Thaw Collection

September 29, 2017 through January 7, 2018

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.

Online Exhibition
Listen to the audio guide narrated by Colin B. Bailey, Director of the Morgan Library & Museum, and curators John Marciari, Jennifer Tonkovich, Isabelle Dervaux, and Ilona van Tuinen. All drawings from the exhibition are available online.

Lead Corporate Sponsor

Morgn Stanley

The exhibition and catalogue are also made possible by a major gift in honor of Eugene V. and the late Clare E. Thaw and in memory of Melvin R. Seiden, generous support from Cosima Pavoncelli, the Ricciardi Family Exhibition Fund, and the Franklin Jasper Walls Lecture Fund, and assistance from the ADAA Foundation and Mr. and Mrs. Clement C. Moore II.

Drawn to Greatness is a program of the Drawing Institute.

Francisco de Goya (1746-1828), Leave It All to Providence, 1816-20, black ink and gray wash. Thaw Collection, The Morgan Library & Museum.

Publication
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Selected Images

Andrea Mantegna (1431–1506), Three Standing Saints, ca. 1450-1455, pen and brown ink on paper toned with red chalk, Thaw Collection, The Morgan Library & Museum, 1985.100.

Vittore Carpaccio (1455? - 1525?), Virgin and Child with Saints in a Landscape, ca. 1500–1510, pen and brown ink and wash over red and black chalk, Thaw Collection, The Morgan Library & Museum, 2006.46.

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669), Four Musicians with Wind Instruments, ca. 1638, pen and brown and black ink and brown wash, and red and yellow chalk, Thaw Collection, The Morgan Library & Museum, 2004.42.

Albrecht Altdorfer (ca. 1480–1538), Two Lovers by a Fountain in a Landscape, 1509-10, pen and black ink and white opaque watercolor, Thaw Collection, The Morgan Library & Museum, 2006.41.

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669), The Bulwark De Rose and the Windmill De Smeerpot, Amsterdam, ca. 1649-52, pen and brown ink and wash, Thaw Collection, The Morgan Library & Museum, 2006.47.

Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (1727–1804), Scene of Contemporary Life: The Picture Show, 1791, pen and brown and black ink and wash over black chalk, Thaw Collection, The Morgan Library & Museum, 2017.253.

Antoine Watteau (1684–1721), A Member of the Persian Embassy, 1715, red and black chalk, Thaw Collection, The Morgan Library & Museum, 2000.54.

Francisco de Goya (1746–1828), Leave it all to Providence (Dejalo todo a la probidencia), 1816-20, black ink and gray wash, Thaw Collection, The Morgan Library & Museum, 1999.22. 

J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851), The Pass of St. Gotthard, near Faido, 1843, watercolor over graphite, Thaw Collection, The Morgan Library & Museum, 2006.52.

Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806), The Little Park, ca. 1765, paque watercolor over graphite, Thaw Collection, The Morgan Library & Museum, 1997.85.

Odilon Redon (1840–1916), The Fool (or Intuition), 1877, charcoal with black chalk and fixative on light brown paper, Thaw Collection, The Morgan Library & Museum, 2010.120.

Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890), Letter to Paul Gauguin, 17 October 1888, with a sketch of Bedroom at Arles, pen and brown ink on graph paper, Thaw Collection, The Morgan Library & Museum, MA 6447. Given in honor of Charles E. Pierce, Jr., 2007.

Jan Bruegel (1568 - 1625), A View of the Tiber in Rome with the Ponte Sisto and Saint Peter's in the Distance, ca. 1594, pen and brown ink and wash and blue watercolor over black chalk, Thaw Collection, The Morgan Library & Museum, 2017.20.

Paul Cézanne (1839–1906), The Bathers, ca. 1900, watercolor over graphite, Thaw Collection, The Morgan Library & Museum, 2017.29.

Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas (1834–1917), Seated Dancer, 1871-72, oil paint over graphite on pink paper, Thaw Collection, The Morgan Library & Museum, 2017.54.

Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863), Moroccans Outside the Walls of Tangier, 19th century, watercolor and opaque white watercolor over graphite on wove paper, Thaw Collection, The Morgan Library & Museum, 2017.65.

Paul Gauguin (1848–1903), Crouching Tahitian Woman Seen from the Back, ca. 1902, monotype in watercolor with opaque white watercolor, Thaw Collection, The Morgan Library & Museum, 2017.90.

Antoine Watteau (1684–1721), Young Woman Wearing a Chemise, ca. 1718, black, red, and white chalk, Thaw Collection, The Morgan Library & Museum, 2000.53.

Jackson Pollock (1912–1956), Untitled [Drawing for P.G.], ca. 1943, pen and black ink and wash, green ink wash, red colored pencil, and orange watercolor pencil © 2017 The Pollock-Krasner Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.