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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

Kara Walker

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

Albrecht Dürer, printmaker

Madonna with the Pear, 1511

Vincent van Gogh

View of Arles, 1888

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

Study of the Portrait of Louise de Broglie, Comtesse d'Haussonville, 1861

Attributed to Utagawa Kuniyoshi 歌川 国芳

Preliminary sketch from an album of drawings, ca. 1840 -1860

Sumiyoshi

The Tale of Genji, late 1600s

Sumiyoshi

The Tale of Genji, 1600s

Pablo Picasso

Two Nudes, 1900s

Mary Cassatt

Mother with Child seen from behind, 1890

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

Head of Man, 1700s
No Image Available

Christian Rohlfs, designer

Two Figures, 1921

Lucian Freud

Lord Goodman in His Yellow Pajamas, 1987

Rembrandt van Rijn

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

Anthony van Dyck

Study for Malchus, ca. 1618-1620
No Image Available

Ellsworth Kelly, printmaker

Feuilles, 1964

Harry Callahan

Twigs in Snow #320, 1900s

Harry Callahan

Wires, Providence (No. 111), 1965

Diego Rivera

Self-portrait (Autorretrato), 1930
No Image Available

Peregrine Honig

Ovubet: 26 Girls with Sweet Centers, 1999

More objects +

Exhibition Checklist

Drawing the Line

March 30 - June 10, 2001
View Checklist PDF

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