ARTISTS
Master Drawings London 2010
03 Jul, 2010 - 09 Jul, 2010
When the Art Institute of Chicago's first professional curator of prints and drawings, Carl O. Schniewind, assumed his position in 1940, he found the esteemed scholar Ulrich Middeldorf writing a catalogue of the museum's William F. E. Gurley Collection-an uneven array of about four thousand Old Master drawings. Schniewind stopped the project, declaring, "Before we can have a catalogue of a drawing collection, we need to have a collection worthy of a catalogue!" He quickly established a group of collectors who would help him to do just that. Among them was Mrs. Potter Palmer II, daughter-in-law of the famous Impressionist collector Bertha Palmer. With Pauline Palmer and others, Schniewind would travel to New York, Paris, and London, scouting out great drawings and securing them for the museum.
The modus operandi was somewhat different then. The pace was naturally slower; one wrote letters, made appointments far in advance, considered photographs and then, in later years, color transparencies. The scholarly exhibition catalogue prepared by a dealer was not nearly as prevalent as it is today, and magazine advertisements gave the firm's name and address but were not consistently illustrated until color reproductions became more affordable in the late 1960s. Auction houses were largely the purview of dealers, but increasingly museum curators and collectors paid attention to the more illustrious sales. One of the earliest of these to which a wide roster of museums responded to was the album of landscape drawings by Fra Bartolommeo sold in London in November 1957. In a less cut-throat era, curators-when stirred to action-often cooperated in a gentlemanly way, thus assuring a plan that allowed the Metropolitan Museum to acquire a Raphael sheet, and the Art Institute to buy Watteau's Old Savoyard from the same sale in March 1964.
When I joined the Art Institute staff thirty-five years ago, it seemed that drawings came to us. Schniewind's successor, Harold Joachim, did not travel as extensively as we do today; instead, dealers visited frequently, bringing the works or at least photographs of them that they had in mind for us. That changed in the 1980s, as curators, dealers, and collectors alike traveled to the various Woodner symposia and celebrity auctions, such as the Chatsworth sales of 1984, 1985, and 1987. Now, of course, the networks created by the electronic dispersal of information, online catalogues, Artnet, faxes, etc., make the entire process so much easier and accessible to a wider audience. But it is still important to see drawings in the flesh, to look at works in relationship to others, and to compare notes with people in the field whose eye and knowledge one trusts. This is why Old Master Drawings weeks are so important.
Seventy years after Schniewind's campaign began to improve the Art Institute's collection of prints and drawings, the museum and Chicago collectors continue to search for great works of art in the above-mentioned cities. The hunt has been made all the more delightful and efficient by the dealer fairs now held annually in each of them, and in particular by the evolution in the past decade of Master Drawings weeks in each of those cultural centers. The first to be established was the week in London, when, just ten years ago, a group of mostly Old Master drawings dealers decided to join forces during the major July drawing sales. To avoid the city's normal work-week congestion, the London Master Drawings events usually begin on a weekend. This allows collectors, curators, dealers, and aficionados from around the globe to wander Bond Street and St. James, greeting friends and becoming familiar with the area's individual businesses as well as looking at works of art.
Whether one is a novice or a cognoscento, this is a marvelous opportunity. One can wander into long-established galleries, enjoy special exhibitions by dealers who are not located in central London, and preview the auctions. It is possible to remain anonymous and absorb a great deal, but the pervasive air of conviviality and camaraderie of a large group of people devoted to the art of drawing is hard to resist! Those of us afflicted by the "drawings bug" cannot enter a museum, a gallery, or collector's home without gravitating immediately to the works on paper that permit us to enter the artist's creative process and see his or her hand at work. I have often thought how fortunate we are to attend these regularly scheduled drawings fests. For those of us whose business it is to buy drawings, we get to see a great selection of master works, and to connect with colleagues in a focused and fertile environment.
There is something very special about the quality and care with which Master Drawings week in London has been conceived and managed that brings us back year after year. The London event has now been emulated in New York each January and at the Salon du Dessin in Paris each spring. Long may these remarkable concentrations of drawings shows lure all of us to the seductive realm of drawings, the joy of collecting, and the pleasure of being together.
The modus operandi was somewhat different then. The pace was naturally slower; one wrote letters, made appointments far in advance, considered photographs and then, in later years, color transparencies. The scholarly exhibition catalogue prepared by a dealer was not nearly as prevalent as it is today, and magazine advertisements gave the firm's name and address but were not consistently illustrated until color reproductions became more affordable in the late 1960s. Auction houses were largely the purview of dealers, but increasingly museum curators and collectors paid attention to the more illustrious sales. One of the earliest of these to which a wide roster of museums responded to was the album of landscape drawings by Fra Bartolommeo sold in London in November 1957. In a less cut-throat era, curators-when stirred to action-often cooperated in a gentlemanly way, thus assuring a plan that allowed the Metropolitan Museum to acquire a Raphael sheet, and the Art Institute to buy Watteau's Old Savoyard from the same sale in March 1964.
When I joined the Art Institute staff thirty-five years ago, it seemed that drawings came to us. Schniewind's successor, Harold Joachim, did not travel as extensively as we do today; instead, dealers visited frequently, bringing the works or at least photographs of them that they had in mind for us. That changed in the 1980s, as curators, dealers, and collectors alike traveled to the various Woodner symposia and celebrity auctions, such as the Chatsworth sales of 1984, 1985, and 1987. Now, of course, the networks created by the electronic dispersal of information, online catalogues, Artnet, faxes, etc., make the entire process so much easier and accessible to a wider audience. But it is still important to see drawings in the flesh, to look at works in relationship to others, and to compare notes with people in the field whose eye and knowledge one trusts. This is why Old Master Drawings weeks are so important.
Seventy years after Schniewind's campaign began to improve the Art Institute's collection of prints and drawings, the museum and Chicago collectors continue to search for great works of art in the above-mentioned cities. The hunt has been made all the more delightful and efficient by the dealer fairs now held annually in each of them, and in particular by the evolution in the past decade of Master Drawings weeks in each of those cultural centers. The first to be established was the week in London, when, just ten years ago, a group of mostly Old Master drawings dealers decided to join forces during the major July drawing sales. To avoid the city's normal work-week congestion, the London Master Drawings events usually begin on a weekend. This allows collectors, curators, dealers, and aficionados from around the globe to wander Bond Street and St. James, greeting friends and becoming familiar with the area's individual businesses as well as looking at works of art.
Whether one is a novice or a cognoscento, this is a marvelous opportunity. One can wander into long-established galleries, enjoy special exhibitions by dealers who are not located in central London, and preview the auctions. It is possible to remain anonymous and absorb a great deal, but the pervasive air of conviviality and camaraderie of a large group of people devoted to the art of drawing is hard to resist! Those of us afflicted by the "drawings bug" cannot enter a museum, a gallery, or collector's home without gravitating immediately to the works on paper that permit us to enter the artist's creative process and see his or her hand at work. I have often thought how fortunate we are to attend these regularly scheduled drawings fests. For those of us whose business it is to buy drawings, we get to see a great selection of master works, and to connect with colleagues in a focused and fertile environment.
There is something very special about the quality and care with which Master Drawings week in London has been conceived and managed that brings us back year after year. The London event has now been emulated in New York each January and at the Salon du Dessin in Paris each spring. Long may these remarkable concentrations of drawings shows lure all of us to the seductive realm of drawings, the joy of collecting, and the pleasure of being together.
When the Art Institute of Chicago's first professional curator of prints and drawings, Carl O. Schniewind, assumed his position in 1940, he found the esteemed scholar Ulrich Middeldorf writing a catalogue of the museum's William F. E. Gurley Collection-an uneven array of about four thousand Old Master drawings. Schniewind stopped the project, declaring, "Before we can have a catalogue of a drawing collection, we need to have a collection worthy of a catalogue!" He quickly established a group of collectors who would help him to do just that. Among them was Mrs. Potter Palmer II, daughter-in-law of the famous Impressionist collector Bertha Palmer. With Pauline Palmer and others, Schniewind would travel to New York, Paris, and London, scouting out great drawings and securing them for the museum.
The modus operandi was somewhat different then. The pace was naturally slower; one wrote letters, made appointments far in advance, considered photographs and then, in later years, color transparencies. The scholarly exhibition catalogue prepared by a dealer was not nearly as prevalent as it is today, and magazine advertisements gave the firm's name and address but were not consistently illustrated until color reproductions became more affordable in the late 1960s. Auction houses were largely the purview of dealers, but increasingly museum curators and collectors paid attention to the more illustrious sales. One of the earliest of these to which a wide roster of museums responded to was the album of landscape drawings by Fra Bartolommeo sold in London in November 1957. In a less cut-throat era, curators-when stirred to action-often cooperated in a gentlemanly way, thus assuring a plan that allowed the Metropolitan Museum to acquire a Raphael sheet, and the Art Institute to buy Watteau's Old Savoyard from the same sale in March 1964.
When I joined the Art Institute staff thirty-five years ago, it seemed that drawings came to us. Schniewind's successor, Harold Joachim, did not travel as extensively as we do today; instead, dealers visited frequently, bringing the works or at least photographs of them that they had in mind for us. That changed in the 1980s, as curators, dealers, and collectors alike traveled to the various Woodner symposia and celebrity auctions, such as the Chatsworth sales of 1984, 1985, and 1987. Now, of course, the networks created by the electronic dispersal of information, online catalogues, Artnet, faxes, etc., make the entire process so much easier and accessible to a wider audience. But it is still important to see drawings in the flesh, to look at works in relationship to others, and to compare notes with people in the field whose eye and knowledge one trusts. This is why Old Master Drawings weeks are so important.
Seventy years after Schniewind's campaign began to improve the Art Institute's collection of prints and drawings, the museum and Chicago collectors continue to search for great works of art in the above-mentioned cities. The hunt has been made all the more delightful and efficient by the dealer fairs now held annually in each of them, and in particular by the evolution in the past decade of Master Drawings weeks in each of those cultural centers. The first to be established was the week in London, when, just ten years ago, a group of mostly Old Master drawings dealers decided to join forces during the major July drawing sales. To avoid the city's normal work-week congestion, the London Master Drawings events usually begin on a weekend. This allows collectors, curators, dealers, and aficionados from around the globe to wander Bond Street and St. James, greeting friends and becoming familiar with the area's individual businesses as well as looking at works of art.
Whether one is a novice or a cognoscento, this is a marvelous opportunity. One can wander into long-established galleries, enjoy special exhibitions by dealers who are not located in central London, and preview the auctions. It is possible to remain anonymous and absorb a great deal, but the pervasive air of conviviality and camaraderie of a large group of people devoted to the art of drawing is hard to resist! Those of us afflicted by the "drawings bug" cannot enter a museum, a gallery, or collector's home without gravitating immediately to the works on paper that permit us to enter the artist's creative process and see his or her hand at work. I have often thought how fortunate we are to attend these regularly scheduled drawings fests. For those of us whose business it is to buy drawings, we get to see a great selection of master works, and to connect with colleagues in a focused and fertile environment.
There is something very special about the quality and care with which Master Drawings week in London has been conceived and managed that brings us back year after year. The London event has now been emulated in New York each January and at the Salon du Dessin in Paris each spring. Long may these remarkable concentrations of drawings shows lure all of us to the seductive realm of drawings, the joy of collecting, and the pleasure of being together.
The modus operandi was somewhat different then. The pace was naturally slower; one wrote letters, made appointments far in advance, considered photographs and then, in later years, color transparencies. The scholarly exhibition catalogue prepared by a dealer was not nearly as prevalent as it is today, and magazine advertisements gave the firm's name and address but were not consistently illustrated until color reproductions became more affordable in the late 1960s. Auction houses were largely the purview of dealers, but increasingly museum curators and collectors paid attention to the more illustrious sales. One of the earliest of these to which a wide roster of museums responded to was the album of landscape drawings by Fra Bartolommeo sold in London in November 1957. In a less cut-throat era, curators-when stirred to action-often cooperated in a gentlemanly way, thus assuring a plan that allowed the Metropolitan Museum to acquire a Raphael sheet, and the Art Institute to buy Watteau's Old Savoyard from the same sale in March 1964.
When I joined the Art Institute staff thirty-five years ago, it seemed that drawings came to us. Schniewind's successor, Harold Joachim, did not travel as extensively as we do today; instead, dealers visited frequently, bringing the works or at least photographs of them that they had in mind for us. That changed in the 1980s, as curators, dealers, and collectors alike traveled to the various Woodner symposia and celebrity auctions, such as the Chatsworth sales of 1984, 1985, and 1987. Now, of course, the networks created by the electronic dispersal of information, online catalogues, Artnet, faxes, etc., make the entire process so much easier and accessible to a wider audience. But it is still important to see drawings in the flesh, to look at works in relationship to others, and to compare notes with people in the field whose eye and knowledge one trusts. This is why Old Master Drawings weeks are so important.
Seventy years after Schniewind's campaign began to improve the Art Institute's collection of prints and drawings, the museum and Chicago collectors continue to search for great works of art in the above-mentioned cities. The hunt has been made all the more delightful and efficient by the dealer fairs now held annually in each of them, and in particular by the evolution in the past decade of Master Drawings weeks in each of those cultural centers. The first to be established was the week in London, when, just ten years ago, a group of mostly Old Master drawings dealers decided to join forces during the major July drawing sales. To avoid the city's normal work-week congestion, the London Master Drawings events usually begin on a weekend. This allows collectors, curators, dealers, and aficionados from around the globe to wander Bond Street and St. James, greeting friends and becoming familiar with the area's individual businesses as well as looking at works of art.
Whether one is a novice or a cognoscento, this is a marvelous opportunity. One can wander into long-established galleries, enjoy special exhibitions by dealers who are not located in central London, and preview the auctions. It is possible to remain anonymous and absorb a great deal, but the pervasive air of conviviality and camaraderie of a large group of people devoted to the art of drawing is hard to resist! Those of us afflicted by the "drawings bug" cannot enter a museum, a gallery, or collector's home without gravitating immediately to the works on paper that permit us to enter the artist's creative process and see his or her hand at work. I have often thought how fortunate we are to attend these regularly scheduled drawings fests. For those of us whose business it is to buy drawings, we get to see a great selection of master works, and to connect with colleagues in a focused and fertile environment.
There is something very special about the quality and care with which Master Drawings week in London has been conceived and managed that brings us back year after year. The London event has now been emulated in New York each January and at the Salon du Dessin in Paris each spring. Long may these remarkable concentrations of drawings shows lure all of us to the seductive realm of drawings, the joy of collecting, and the pleasure of being together.
Exhibitors
Colnaghi, London
St. James's | London | UK
Theobald Jennings LLP
London | UK
Stern Pissarro Gallery
Notting Hill | London | UK
Lowell Libson Ltd.
London | UK
James Mackinnon Fine Art
London | UK
Stoppenbach & Delestre Ltd.
London | UK
While in London
20 Sep, 2025
- 18 Jan, 2026
18 Sep, 2025
- 31 Oct, 2025
