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Z0028413.jpg

Introduction

Drawing the Line

March 30 - June 10, 2001

This exhibition was inspired by the many RISD classes, but particularly those of first­year Foundation Studies students, who visit the Museum's Department of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs to study and learn from work in this collection of some 20,000 objects. Many exceptional works of art on paper are seldom seen in the galleries because of their sheer number, the amount of appropriate exhibition space available, and because works on paper are especially vulnerable to deterioration with prolonged exposure to light which weakens the paper fibers and fades many media.

Drawing the Line is intended to suggest the unbounded variety of visual effects feasible primarily through the use of line. In the prints, drawings, and photographs on view, which date from the 16th century to the present, one sees the many decisions an artist makes in the seemingly simple process of drawing a line. An artist first decides upon a medium and then chooses the tool or tools to apply it and the support on which to work. As you look at the exhibition, you might think about how the artist's manipulation of line contributes to the meaning of the piece. What is the weight of the line? What direction does it take? Is the line studied or spontaneous? What is its relationship to other lines in the picture? Does the line create boundaries or suggest depth? These are just a few of the questions students consider as they look at these works in relationship to their own drawing assignments.

Selected Objects

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Harry Callahan

Wires, Providence (No. 111), 1965
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Harry Callahan

Twigs in Snow #320, 1900s
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Mary Cassatt

Mother with Child seen from behind, 1890
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Albrecht Dürer, printmaker

Madonna with the Pear, 1511
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Anthony van Dyck

Study for Malchus, before 1621
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Lucian Freud

Lord Goodman in His Yellow Pajamas, 1987
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Vincent van Gogh

View of Arles, 1888
No Image Available

Peregrine Honig

Ovubet: 26 Girls with Sweet Centers, 1999
RISDM 32-227.jpg

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

Study of the Portrait of Louise de Broglie, Comtesse d'Haussonville, 1861
No Image Available

Ellsworth Kelly, printmaker

Feuilles, 1964
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Attributed to Utagawa Kuniyoshi

Preliminary sketch from an album of drawings, ca. 1840 -1860
RISDM 35-534.jpg

Pablo Picasso

Two Nudes, 1900s
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Rembrandt van Rijn

Landscape (Farm Buildings at the Dijk) (recto); Partial Landscape with Trees and Fence (verso), ca. 1648
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Diego Rivera

Self-portrait (Autorretrato), 1930
No Image Available

Christian Rohlfs, designer

Two Figures, 1921
RISDM 82-103-1 v_01.jpg

Sumiyoshi

The Tale of Genji, late 1600s
RISDM 82-103-2 v_01.jpg

Sumiyoshi

The Tale of Genji, 1600s
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Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

Head of Man, 1700s
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Kara Walker

Freedom -- A Fable: A Curious Interpretation of the Wit of a Negress in Troubled Times, 1997

More objects +

Exhibition Checklist

Drawing the Line

March 30 - June 10, 2001
View Checklist PDF

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