Ringling Museum is the First Place to See Yale Master Drawings Exhibition
October 21, 2006-January 7, 2007
Sarasota, FL – Sept. 19, 2006 – A spectacular show featuring several pieces never seen by the general public opens October 21, 2006 at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art. Master Drawings from the Yale University Gallery is a survey of European draftsmanship spanning from the late fifteenth to mid-nineteenth century.
The collection gives viewers an opportunity to examine drawings and techniques in a broad spectrum of periods and styles from Europe. The Ringling Museum of Art is the first of three venues selected to feature these works on paper from the oldest University Museum in the country.
Master Drawings from the Yale University Art Gallery is the first exploration of the breadth and depth of the Yale University Art Gallery’s collection of European drawings since 1970. This show, selected from the Gallery’s holdings of more than one thousand old master drawings, features drawings from all of Europe, with France, Italy and Netherlands prominently represented.
“The Gallery’s collection of European drawings offers an intimate view across a broad range of artistic ideas and working methods,” said Jock Reynolds, the Henry J. Heinz II Director of the Yale University Art Gallery.
“A collection-based exhibition such as this one is exciting to assemble, for it propels new research and scholarship, which in turn prompts a teaching museum such as ours to further strengthen its holdings. We are delighted to be able to share these works, seldom viewed beyond our very active print room, with two other university museums and the public at large.”
Master Drawings presents a collection of examples of almost every artistic movement and drawing technique used by European artists from the Renaissance to the beginning of the modern era. Many of the drawings are finished sheets, but also drawings from various stages in the creative process are shown; studies for paintings, works preparatory for prints, stained glass, tapestries and embroideries.
Many of the periods featured in Master Drawings from the Yale University Gallery correspond with the periods displayed in the Ringling Museum in the permanent collection, such as Renaissance, Mannerism, and Baroque. Some of the artists displayed in Master Drawings carry similarities in style and subject with those in the collection at Ringling, which provides an interesting and thought-provoking comparison for visitors.
The exhibition features works by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, François Boucher, Edgar Degas, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri), Jacob Jordaens, Claude Lorrain, Domenico Tiepolo, and Jean-Antoine Watteau as well as by many lesser-known artists.
Ringling Museum Exhibition Curator Joanna Weber joined the Ringling after 18 years with Yale University, where she was Curator for the Yale University Art Gallery, as well as the Father Marie-Alain Couturier Collection and the Department of European and Contemporary Art. “Bringing a piece of Yale to Sarasota was important to me because of my first-hand experience and attachment to both collections,” she said.
Traveling exhibitions such as Master Drawings are a means of making the Gallery’s collections available to a broad public and is an initiative the Ringling Museum is also pursuing with its own traveling shows.
Master Drawings from the Yale University Art Gallery is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, co-published by the Gallery and Yale University Press. The 296-page book includes a foreword by Reynolds; an introduction by the curators; and text on individual works, mostly by Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs Suzanne Boorsch and the Nina and Lee Griggs Associate Curator of Early European Art John Marciari, with a small number written by experts on a given artist or by Yale graduate students working under the direction of the curators. The catalogue presents new scholarship, including the re-attribution of works in the collection, and features over one hundred large-scale color illustrations.
The exhibition and its attendant publication are supported by Mr. and Mrs. Bruce B. Dayton, Dr. and Mrs. Edmund P. Pillsbury, the Florence B. Selden Fund, and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.
General Admission includes the Ringling Museum of Art, Cà d’Zan Mansion, Circus Museum,Mable’s historic Rose Garden and Florida’s only rose test gardens, all on 66 acres of lushly landscaped grounds. Adults are $15; senior citizens (65 and over) are $13; children ages 6-17 are $5. Free Admission for children 5 and under accompanied by an adult, museum members. Advance tickets are available by calling 941.358.3180. Visit for more information.