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Master Drawings

Master Drawings is the leading international periodical for the study of drawings from the fourteent Master Drawings Association, Inc.

is a not-for-profit organization incorporated in the State of New York on March 16, 1962, for the purpose of disseminating knowledge in the field of Western draftsmanship since the Renaissance. Its mission is fulfilled mainly through the publication of the subscription-based, academic quarterly Master Drawings, which was launched in 1963. The founding Editor was the late Felice Stampfle, Curator o

f Drawings and Prints at the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; the first Associate Editors were the late Jacob Bean, Curator of Drawings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann, who is Professor Emeritus at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. Master Drawings aspires to be the leading international periodical for the study of drawings from the fourteenth century to the present day in Europe and the Americas. Edited to the highest academic standards, it seeks to present the best and most important new research in a clear, elegant, and accessible format. The journal is primarily concerned with the publication of newly discovered material, significant reattributions, and fresh interpretations. Each issue, extensively illustrated with high-quality color and black-and-white images, consists of approximately 144 pages of articles, notes, exhibition and book reviews, as well as trade advertising. Other features, such as interviews with living artists and essays about historical collectors or collections, are intended to foster a sense of continuity between the pre-modern and modern eras. The journal’s target readership is a diverse and interrelated constituency of international curators, academics, students, collectors, and dealers. The language of the quarterly is English, but submissions are encouraged from a broad range of specialists throughout the world, mainly Europe and the Americas. may hold events that advance its mission and promote contact and collaboration within all sectors of the international drawings community. In light of changing research patterns in a digital age, the Board of Directors is committed to maintaining an online presence for the journal in order to increase its accessibility by making past content available through internet archiving programs.

12/15/2025

“Nordic Noir: Works on Paper from Edvard Munch to Mamma Andersson,” at the British Museum, includes around 150 pieces from 100 different artists in an exhibition celebrating graphic works on paper from the Nordic region. Key themes throughout the exhibition are nature and the vital urgency to preserve the environment of the fjords, mountains and forests unique to the region. The artworks, on display through March 22, 2026, also delve into the worlds of Norse myth, inner struggles with mental health, post-war angst and the threat of the Cold War, and feminism and the rights of the Indigenous Sámi people. In addition to Edvard Munch and Mamma Andersson, featured artists include Olafur Eliasson, John Savio, Vanessa Baird, Yuichiro Sato, Fatima Moallim, John Kørner and many more.

(Image: Vibeke Slyngstad, “Shuafat II, 2023,” watercolor, reproduced by permission of
the artist © The Trustees of the British Museum)

12/12/2025

“David Wilkie: Drawings,” at the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, shows the variety of Wilkie’s drawings throughout his career and the role they played in his complex paintings. On view until February 8, 2026, the artworks demonstrate his use of pen and ink for spontaneous sketching, and precise chalk studies of key details. From the 1820s, Wilkie increasingly added watercolor to his drawings. His late drawings combine chalk and bold color to create powerful, independent works of art.
(Image: Sir David Wilkie, “The Burying of the Scottish Regalia,” pen and watercolor on paper,” National Galleries of Scotland)

12/10/2025

Looking for a unique holiday present for an art lover? Consider giving a subscription to MASTER DRAWINGS! Not only does your gift include the 2026 printed volume of the journal but it also comes with FREE digital access to the entire volume. The online version of MASTER DRAWINGS offers the opportunity to further explore the drawings discussed, providing links to collection images and catalogues.

Subscribing is easy! Just go to https://masterdrawings.org/subscribe/

Remember to renew your own subscription to MASTER DRAWINGS because you won’t want to miss the outstanding research on drawings coming in 2026, including an important re-thinking of Raphael’s so-called “Disputà;” an entire issue focused on Northern drawings with spectacular new insights; and groundbreaking discoveries on drawings by Albrecht Dürer and Hans Baldung Grien.

Place your order before DECEMBER 31 to ensure there is no delay in receiving your subscription.

(Image: Raphael, “Study for the Lower Center Part of the Theology Wall,” Musée Condé, Chantilly)

12/09/2025

“Wall Drawing Series: Gladys Nilsson,” at our partner institution, the Menil Drawing Institute in Houston, is the seventh installment of the series which began in 2018.

Nilsson, a Chicago-based artist, is known for her densely layered and meticulously constructed watercolors and collage, populated by casts of bizarre, distorted figures with exaggerated poses that engage in complex webs of interaction. Her crowded compositions are typically marked by humor and playfulness, and a sense of the absurd. Her art draws inspiration from a wide array of sources, from Egyptian art and classical mythology to German Expressionism, Outlier art, and comics.

“The Wall Drawing Series” began as part of the Drawing Institute’s commitment to seeking new approaches to the form and language of drawing. Past participants include Marc Bauer, Mel Bochner, Roni Horn, Marcia Kure, Ronny Quevedo, and Jorinde Voigt. Nilsson’s “Wall Drawing” will be on view until August 16, 2026.

(Image: Installation view of “Drawing” by Gladys Nilsson at the Menil Collection’s Menil Drawing Institute, Houston. Photo: Sarah Hobson)

12/06/2025

“Trisha Donnelly,” at the Drawing Center in New York, is the first exhibition to concentrate solely on the artist’s works on paper. Her art encompasses sound, video, drawing, performance, photography, installation, and sculpture. She has been making drawings for the past twenty-five years. The exhibit is on view until February 1, 2026.

(Image: Trisha Donnelly, “Untitled,2018,” pencil on paper, Photo: Marc Domage, Courtesy of the artist and Air de Paris, Romainville)

12/05/2025

“Highlights of the Robert Lehman Collection: Manuscript Illuminations and Drawings,” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Robert Lehman wing. Upon his death in 1969, Lehman bequeathed 2,600 works to the Met with the stipulation that they be exhibited as a private collection and installed in galleries that evoked the ambiance of the Lehman residence. The collection includes 750 Old Master drawings ranging from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries with a significant group of eighteenth-century Venetian works, as well as other distinguished Italian, French, and Northern European examples. Not often displayed due to their light sensitivity, the exhibition, on view until February 8, 2026, includes works from Goya, Dürer, Ingres, Rembrandt, Tiepolo, and Jacques Louis David.

(Image: Albrecht Dürer, “Self-portrait, Study of a Hand and a Pillow,” pen and brown ink, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)

12/03/2025

“Face 2 Face,” at the Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt, explores seeing and being seen, the interplay between one's own face and the countenance of another. The exhibition draws from the museum’s collection and includes120 drawings, prints, posters, and photographs by 78 artists to illustrate how our understanding of facial expressions is shaped and how much faces reflect their time. Among the artists on view until February 8, 2026, are Max Beckmann, Annibale Carracci, Albrecht Dürer, Elisabeth Freund-Fischer, Charles Le Brun, Roy Lichtenstein, Carlo Maratti, Harmensz van Rijn Rembrandt, Andy Warhol, and Federico Zuccari.

(Image: Carlo Maratta, “Self Portrait, Three Quarter View of Face,” red chalk, Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt)

12/02/2025

Support today by contributing to a small arts organization like ours. For more
than sixty years MASTER DRAWINGS has been, and will continue to be, committed to publishing
outstanding drawings scholarship alongside beautiful illustrations, showcasing works on paper from the Renaissance to present day. We can ONLY continue to do this with help from private individuals like you!

Please consider giving today at https://masterdrawings.org/support-master-drawings/

We thank you for your generosity and wish you a happy holiday season!

(Image: Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres “Study of Hands, 1842,” graphite with traces of white heightening on ivory laid paper, The Cleveland Museum of Art)

12/01/2025

The Winter issue of MASTER DRAWINGS (Volume 63, Number 4) celebrates the Ricciardi Prize for young scholars. Featuring articles by eleven past winners and runners-up, the issue honors the journal’s forward-thinking patron, Lawrence R. Ricciardi, whose funding of the prize has provided an important forum for emerging scholars to publish their work.

There is something for everyone in the Winter issue. A fresh interpretation of the hidden meanings in an early heraldic drawing by Albrecht Dürer is accompanied by explorations of two masterpieces by Michelangelo, The Dream and the Fall of Phaeton, each contextualized with exciting new research. While one article takes a first look at the surprisingly large and wide-ranging collection of the eighteenth-century British artist Paul Sandby, another focuses on Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun’s work in pastel and the unusual construction of one Swiss landscape in particular.

Drawings by lesser-known artists are also examined with equal enthusiasm: a fascinating rendering of a reliquary with the skull of St. Mary Magdalene by Francisco de Holanda; a rare early compositional drawing now attributed to Denys Calvaert; a newly identified preparatory work by Bernardino Poccetti for a fresco in a Florentine palace; and a recently rediscovered allegorical invention by Anton Domenico Gabbiani, honoring one of the great intellectuals of the 17th century Medici court, Francesco Redi.

Different takes on twentieth-century artists are also featured, first in a study of a small group of portraits by Marisa Merz, and then in an examination of the creative challenges addressed in drawings of “landscapes in motion” by contemporary figures Joan Jonas, Rachel Lowe, and Michael Günzburger. The issue concludes with reviews of two exhibitions, one dedicated to the work of Federico Barocci, and the other presented at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum and focused on rarely seen drawings.

Subscribe (and renew!) now at https://masterdrawings.org/subscribe/ to read this impressive issue. Free digital access is included!

(On the front cover Michelangelo, The Dream, ca. 1533 London, Courtauld Gallery © The Courtauld / Bridgeman Images)

11/29/2025

“Luminous Horizons: Celebrating the Legacy of J.M.W. Turner,” at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, spotlights 17 landscape watercolors and drawings by Turner from the museum’s collection. They are accompanied by 10 works by some of his influential colleagues who contributed to watercolor’s rise. One new addition to the group is a piece by the botanical illustrator Margaret Meen, helping represent some historically overlooked contributions by women to watercolor. The exhibition, on view until January 4, 2026, is in celebration of the artist’s 250th birthday.
(Image: Joseph Mallord William Turner, “Venice: The Rialto,” watercolor over pencil on white wove paper, Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields)

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11/27/2025

As we celebrate Thanksgiving Day, MASTER DRAWINGS is grateful for the enthusiasm and interest of our readers and subscribers. You inspire us to continue delivering significant drawings scholarship from the Renaissance to present day. Over the holiday weekend, catch up on past articles you may have missed. To order and download go to https://masterdrawings.org/issues/

(Image: Jacques André Portail, “The Benediction,” red and black chalk, touches of brush and gray wash, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)

11/24/2025

The 2024 exhibition “Walton Ford: Birds and Beasts of the Studio,” at our partner institution, the Morgan Library & Museum, is thoughtfully analyzed by J. Cabelle Ahn in the current issue of MASTER DRAWINGS (Vol. 63, no. 3).

The exhibit focused on sixty drawings gifted to the museum in 2019. “Together, Ford’s selections situated his own drawings as the culmination of a long lineage of artists who have taken depictions of domestic and wild animals as either their primary métier or as temporary subjects to expand their artistic processes,” notes Ahn, an independent art historian.

Subscribe now (https://masterdrawings.org/subscribe/)! Remember, you can access your issue from anywhere by reading MASTER DRAWINGS online: our digital platform is FREE with your individual subscription.

(Image: Walton Ford, “AMNH Coyote Study 2, ca. 2015,” The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, © 2025 Walton Ford)

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