The Essence of Line: French Drawings from Ingres to Degas

Dates: February 19 – May 14
Location: Birmingham Museum of Art, The Hulsey Gallery

This exhibition comprises 100 nineteenth-century French drawings by more than 75 artists from the collections of The Walters Art Museum and The Baltimore Museum of Art. Both collections were formed chiefly during the nineteenth century by private collectors of contemporary drawings. These collectors had a wide range of interests, including Orientalism, history, genre, landscape, and portraiture. Often the works were acquired directly from the artists. The remarkable breadth of the two collections offers a comprehensive survey of drawing during the nineteenth century: neoclassical landscapes through symbolist fantasies; sketches through highly finished narrative scenes; poignant views of peasant life through bawdy caricatures and social satire. These works illuminate the range of French art over the course of a century of innovation. Artists in the exhibition include Cézanne, Daumier, Degas, Delacroix, Ingres, Millet, Prud’hon, Redon, Seurat, and Toulouse-Lautrec, among others.

This show is especially recommended to those students traveling to Rome this spring By Professor Cheryl Morgan.

For More information please visit the Birmingham Museum of Art website.