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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.

11/06/2025

Join artist Lisa Yuskavage on Wednesday, November 19 from 6-7:30pm in a live broadcast from her exhibition, “Lisa Yuskavage: Drawings,” at our partner institution, the Morgan Library & Museum. She will discuss her work with contemporaries: Jarrett Earnest, Sarah Sze, and Matvey Levenstein.

The talk, taking place online, is free but advanced registration is required. Registrants will receive a link via email on the day of the program.
To register, go to: https://www.themorgan.org/programs/creative-insights-lisa-yuskavage-and-friends-online

(Image: Lisa Yuskavage, “Leg, 2002,” Conté crayon on painted paper, Private Collection © Lisa Yuskavage. Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner)
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11/04/2025

“Italian Renaissance Drawings from Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen,” is deftly explored by Martin Clayton, in the current issue of MASTER DRAWINGS (Vol. 63, no. 3). Clayton, Head of Prints and Drawings for Royal Collection Trust, based at Windsor Castle, notes that, “Despite its eminence, the drawings collection of the Boijmans Van Beuningen has been unevenly studied – some sheets are widely published, while others of much interest are hardly known.” A generous grant from the Getty Foundation’s ‘Paper Project’ in 2018 enabled a collaborative project to catalogue 380 Italian Renaissance drawings for the museum’s online database. The catalogue under review accompanied the exhibition of highlights from this project, Naissance et Renaissance du dessin italien: La collection du Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam.

Subscribe now (https://masterdrawings.org/subscribe/) and learn why Clayton hopes that the museum can extend this cataloguing initiative across the remainder of its outstanding drawings collec¬tion.

Remember, you can access your issue from anywhere by reading MASTER DRAWINGS online: our digital platform is FREE with your individual subscription.

(Image: Anonymous Northern Italian, “Study for a Pilgrim with Large Hat,” Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam)

11/03/2025

Devote nine months to an independent research project relating to some aspect of the history, theory, collecting, function, or interpretation of drawings. Our institutional partner, The Morgan Drawing Institute, will award one Postdoctoral Research Fellowship to a scholar in the first decade of their career following the completion of the Ph.D. or equivalent advanced degree. The application deadline is December 1, 2025, and the Fellowship will be at the Morgan Library & Museum from September 1, 2026–June 1, 2027.
The majority of the Fellow’s time will be spent on the research project for which the fellowship is awarded, but the Fellow is expected to participate fully in the intellectual life of the Morgan and to attend Drawing Institute programs during their tenure. The Fellow may occasionally assist in the planning and implementation of Drawing Institute programs.
The Fellow will present a progress report on their research at the conclusion of the fellowship.

For more information: https://www.themorgan.org/opportunities/fellowships/postdoctoral-fellowship

To apply go to https://www.themorgan.org/opportunities/drawing-institute-application

(Image: Antoine Watteau, “Two Studies of the Head and Shoulders of a Little Girl,”
black, red, and white chalk on buff paper; drawn over black chalk sketch of legs, the Morgan Library & Museum, New York)

11/01/2025

“Michelangelo & Men,” at the Teylers Museum in the Netherlands, offers a new perspective on the male body in the work and life of Michelangelo. The exhibit examines the male body from all angles: from the artist’s outside influences of his predecessors and classical antiquity, to his own extensive anatomical knowledge and use of male models, addressing themes of gender, sexuality and beauty ideals. On view until January 25, 2026, the exhibition includes 22 drawings from the museum’s collection as well as 20 international loans, all rarely seen because of the works’ fragility.

(Image: Michelangelo Buonarotti, “Study for an ignudo,” Teylers Museum, the Netherlands)

10/31/2025

Bewitching insights await you when you read MASTER DRAWINGS.

On this Halloween treat yourself to a MASTER DRAWINGS subscription at https://masterdrawings.org/subscribe/. Digital access is free with your subscription. The platform offers enhanced options for interacting with our content.

NOW accepting renewals for 2026!

(Image: Francisco Goya y Lucientes, “A Young Witch Flying on a Rope Swing,” black chalk and lithographic crayon on laid paper, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa)

10/30/2025

Gain firsthand experience and professional training in curatorial work, and in the study and connoisseurship of old master and nineteenth-century drawings. Apply for the 2026-28 Moore Curatorial Fellowship in the Department of Drawings and Prints at our partner institution, The Morgan Library & Museum. This appointment provides the opportunity to be a fully integrated member of the department, with duties and responsibilities comparable to those of a curatorial assistant or assistant curator. The Fellow will have the opportunity to conduct research on the Morgan’s collection of European drawings before 1900 and to contribute significantly to all phases of exhibition planning, organization, and installation; museum education; publications; and other departmental activities.

Deadline for applications is November 15, 2025, with the Fellowship beginning in early 2026. To apply: Please submit a letter addressing your interest in, and qualifications for, the Fellowship; a complete curriculum vitae including language proficiencies; and names of three references. All application materials must be in English and should be submitted online at: https://recruiting.paylocity.com/Recruiting/Jobs/Apply/
Letters of reference should be emailed directly to: [email protected] with the subject heading “Moore Fellow Application.”

(Image: Giorgio Vasari, “Man Seated in Profile to Right,” black chalk on light brown paper, the Morgan Library & Museum, New York)

10/29/2025

An exquisite pastel by Jean-Baptiste Greuze is brought to light by Antoine Chatelain in the current issue of MASTER DRAWINGS (Vol. 63, no.3). Chatelain, a researcher at the Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art in Paris, recently discovered the work in the Musée Angladon – Collection Jacques Doucet in Avignon. Long cited in the literature as one of several sheets associated with the most talked-about work of the 1761 Salon, Greuze’s The Village Bride, the pastel had never been reproduced and its whereabouts had remained a mystery since the late 19th century, until now!

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: Jean-Baptiste Greuze, “Study for the Head of the Young Bride,” Musée Angladon – Collection Jacques Doucet, Avignon)

10/26/2025

MASTER DRAWINGS celebrates on October 31 the reopening of The Princeton University Art Museum, following a multi-year design and construction process. The 146,000-square-foot new facility effectively doubles the Museum’s spaces for displaying art and for teaching and educational programming, with a host of updated visitor amenities.

The Museum will inaugurate the space with special exhibitions, including “Face-to-Face,” a collections-based exhibit that focuses on the universal appeal of the human visage, both revealed and concealed. On view until May 1, the faces displayed in spatial conversation with each other provoke issues of identity, celebrity, and divinity while positing different modes of engagement, from gentle intimacy to emotional confrontation.

(Image: Guercino (Giovanni Francesco Barbieri), “Bust of Bearded Man Wearing a Turban,”
red chalk, Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, Connecticut)

10/25/2025

“In the Company of Friends: Portrait Drawing in 17th-century London,” at the British Museum, celebrates the recent acquisition of two rare 17th-century drawings by prominent English portrait painters Samuel Cooper and Richard Gibson. Both artists were part of a thriving artistic community that grew in London in the second half of the 17th century. The circle also included painters Sir Peter Lely, Charles Beale and Sir Godfrey Kneller. Their world is reflected in the drawings selected for this display – informal and intimate portraits of family members, friends, tradespeople and servants, as well as of fellow artists. The portraits will be on view until January 25, 2026.

(Image: Richard Gibson, “Portrait of a Man,” black, white, and red chalk on paper prepared with a pink-orange wash, British Museum, London)

10/24/2025

Learn more about the Cooper Hewitt Museum’s Stradanus Project at a symposium taking place November 6-7 at the museum. Cooper Hewitt holds 143 sheets of drawings and inscriptions from the sketchbooks of the Netherlandish artist Johannes Stradanus, also known as Jan van der Straet (1523–1605). As one of the head artists at the Medici court in Florence, Stradanus worked as a painter and designer. He was also a prolific printmaker.

Beginning in 2021, Cooper Hewitt embarked on a project to conserve, research, and digitize Stradanus’s drawings, which served as preparatory designs for his engravings. At some point in their history, the drawings were bound together to form several sketchbooks that were later disassembled. As a result of conservation treatment and research, drawings and inscriptions that have been obscured for more than a century have been newly revealed.

To register for the symposium go to https://www.cooperhewitt.org/event/stradanus-at-cooper-hewitt-symposium-11-06-2025/

(Image: Jan van der Straet, called Stradanus, “Spiritus Fortitudines,” Recto: pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash over black chalk on laid paper, Cooper Hewitt Museum, New York)

10/23/2025

“Lines of Resolution: Drawing at the Advent of Television and Video,” at our partner institution, The Menil Drawing Institute, surveys the various ways in which artists have responded to television and video imagery through drawing. The exhibition, on view until February 8, 2026, highlights a period known as the “network era,” from the 1950s to the 1980s, when television became more pervasive in society. The display features more than fifty works on paper, video, mixed media sculpture, and an immersive installation, created by twenty-five artists from ten countries, including Nam June Paik, Jaime Davidovich, Walter De Maria, and Philip Guston. The title of the exhibition—"Lines of Resolution”—refers to the amount of detail a television or video system can reproduce, while highlighting artists’ unwavering commitment to these emergent media.

(Image: Philip Guston, “Untitled, 1971,” ink on paper, private collection, courtesy of Hauser & Wirth)

10/20/2025

“Renoir’s Drawings,” at our institutional partner, the Morgan Library & Museum, is the first comprehensive exhibition in more than a century devoted to the works on paper of Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Organized with the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, “Renoir Drawings” brings together over one hundred drawings, pastels, watercolors, prints, and paintings, inviting visitors to engage with Renoir’s creative process while offering insights into his artistic methods across five decades.

While Renoir’s paintings have become icons of Impressionism, his drawings, watercolors, and pastels are far less widely known. The exhibit, on view until February 8, 2026, demonstrates how drawing remained central to his artistic practice even as his interests and ambitions changed over the course of a long career. It explores the ways in which Renoir used paper to test ideas, plan compositions, and interpret both landscape and the human figure.

(Image: Auguste Renoir, “Portrait of a Girl (Elisabeth Maître),” pastel on Ingres paper, The Albertina Museum, Vienna)

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