Master Drawings New York Announces Programs During Run Of Fair, January 26 – February 3

Master Drawings New York (MDNY), the premier U.S. drawings showcase, announces programs for the 2024 fair, on view from January 27 through February 3 in more than two dozen galleries on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

The annual show, a well-established and highly anticipated hybrid art fair and art walk, will open with a preview event on Friday, January 26 from 3 p.m.–8 p.m. The exhibiting galleries will feature exceptional and rare works on paper from the 15th to the 21st centuries, as well as paintings, sculpture, and photographs.

The MDNY 2024 programs have been organized by The Drawing Foundation, a newly formed New York-based nonprofit that celebrates the art of drawing. Twelve events including conversations, tours, lectures, and special exhibition viewings at leading museums and galleries will be presented, and highlights include: the MDNY Inaugural Lecture on Botticelli drawings at the Italian Cultural Institute; The Met Curatorial Conversation: Nature and Narrative: Exploring British Drawings at The Metropolitan Museum of Art; the annual Master Drawings Symposium at Villa Albertine, The Payne Whitney Mansion; and a number of panel discussions including Drawn to Blue Paper at New York University's Institute of Fine Arts, Modern Contemporary Drawings influencing Sculpture at the National Arts Club, and Drawn to Teaching / Teaching through Drawings: University Art Museum Collections at New York University's Institute of Fine Arts. The Drawing Foundation will be offering tours of galleries participating in MDNY 2024. Details will be announced on January 11. Most events are free and open to the public, advanced registration is required. To register, visit https://thedrawingfoundation.org/. Registration for most events will begin on Thursday, January 4 at 12 p.m.
  
“There is a great synergy between Master Drawings New York and The Drawing Foundation in this opportunity to organize the 2024 programming with institutional partners. These events further add to the vibrancy of Drawings Week through intellectual exchanges, lectures, panel discussions, and conversations that bring together the community of those passionate about drawings,” explains Allison Wucher, Co-founder of The Drawing Foundation. “We have a number of events with partners whose names will be familiar to long-time followers of MDNY, and have also developed new opportunities and collaborations to expand the lineup.”
 
MDNY programs organized by The Drawing Foundation for 2024 are as follows:
 
Friday, January 26, 2024, 12:30 p.m.
MDNY 2024 Inaugural Lecture: Botticelli Drawings
The work of the Florentine artist Sandro Botticelli (ca. 1445-1510) has had an enduring influence and popularity on contemporary culture, embodying the flowering of the Italian Renaissance. Presented exclusively at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Botticelli Drawings is the first and largest exhibition to explore the central role that drawing played in Botticelli's art and workshop practice.
Location: Italian Cultural Institute in New York; 686 Park Avenue
Speaker: Furio Rinaldi, Curator, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
 
Saturday, January 27, 2024, 12 p.m.
Panel Discussion: The Market for Drawings – How to Collect
At The Winter Show, dealers and collectors will engage in a lively discussion about the market for drawings and distinct approaches to collecting. A special report on the drawings market, prepared by ArtTactic, serves as the basis for the conversation.
Location: The Winter Show, Park Avenue Armory; 643 Park Avenue
Free with general admission ticket ($30) to The Winter Show
Moderator: Megan Corcoran Locke, Head of Business Development, ArtTactic
Panelists: To Be Announced
Organized by The Drawing Foundation and The Winter Show in partnership with ArtTactic and in association with Master Drawings New York 2024.
 
Sunday, January 28, 2024, 4 p.m.
Collector Conversations: Talking Drawings
Over the past 25 years, the market for 19th-century French drawings has moved from the margins to the center of the drawings field. While works by marquee artists have long been appreciated, the canon has expanded significantly along with the opportunities to acquire excellent sheets by less known draftsmen. This year's conversation features collectors and curators in conversation about the pursuit of drawings made over the course of a tumultuous century in France.
Location: Stephen Ongpin Fine Art, Exhibiting at Adam Williams Fine Art; 24 East 80th Street
Moderator: Jennifer Tonkovich, Eugene and Clare Thaw Curator of Drawings and Prints, The Morgan Library & Museum
Organized by The Drawing Foundation in partnership with the Society for the History of Collecting and in association with Master Drawings New York 2024.
 
Sunday, January 28, 2024, 6 p.m.
Lecture: Van Dyck's Drawings for the Iconographie
Location: CHRISTIE'S New York, 20 Rockefeller Plaza
Speaker: Stijn Alsteens, International Head of Department, Old Master Drawings, CHRISTIE'S
Registration for this event is managed by CHRISTIE'S New York. Details to be announced.
Organized by CHRISTIE'S in partnership with The Drawing Foundation and in association with Master Drawings New York 2024.
 
Monday, January 29, 2024, 10:30 a.m.
The Met Curatorial Conversation: Nature and Narrative: Exploring British Drawings
This curatorial conversation is inspired by the exhibition British Vision, 1700–1900: Selections from the Department of Drawings and Prints, on view from December 7, 2023 through March 5, 2024. The show celebrates recent additions to The Met's collection by British artists who worked across two centuries, from 1700 to 1900. Landscape is a focus here, with the genre becoming closely allied to the growing popularity of watercolor during this period.
Location: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Sacerdote Lecture Hall; 1000 5th Avenue
Speakers: Anne Lyles, Independent Art Historian and Curator, British Art ca. 1790–1850 “Remarkable designs”: Simeon Solomon's Pre-Raphaelite Drawings; Roberto C. Ferrari, Curator of Art Properties, Columbia University, Building a Collection of British Drawings and Watercolors at The Met; Constance McPhee, Curator, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Following the Curatorial Conversation, attendees are invited to view the exhibition, British Vision, 1700–1900: Selections from the Department of Drawings and Prints
Organized in partnership with The Metropolitan Museum of Art and is made possible through the generous support of CHRISTIE'S.
 
Tuesday, January 30, 2024, 11 a.m.
Study Session: Nature Observed: Frederic Edwin Church
An intimate look at the breathtaking sketches of Frederic Edwin Church (American, 1826-1900) at Cooper Hewitt. The premier artist of the Hudson River School, Church traveled widely in pursuit of close observation of the natural world and produced a remarkable body of working drawings. Church's approach to documenting the majesty of nature will be explored from icebergs in the Arctic to tropical flora in Jamaica.
Location: Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum; 2 East 91st Street
Speakers: Caitlin Condell, Associate Curator & Head, Drawings, Prints & Graphic Design, Cooper Hewitt; Casey Monroe, Senior Research Cataloguer, Frederic Edwin Church, Cooper Hewitt
Organized in partnership with the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.
 
Tuesday, January 30, 2024, 1:30 p.m.
Panel Discussion: Drawn to Blue Paper
A panel discussion focusing on the collaborative research between art historians and conservators examined in the newly released Getty publication Drawing on Blue: European Drawings on Blue Paper, 1400s–1700s, and associated exhibition, Drawing on Blue (January 30 – April 28, 2024). The participating panelists include an art historian, conservator, and papermaker who dive deeply into the historic process of how blue paper was made and used in early modern Europe. The conversation will be followed by a tour of two participating Master Drawings New York galleries to view examples of drawings on blue paper that illustrate the concepts and research discussed by the panelists.
Location: Institute of Fine Arts, New York University; 1 East 78th Street
Moderator: Margaret Holben Ellis, Eugene Thaw Professor Emerita of Paper Conservation, NYU
Panelists: Edina Adam, Assistant Curator, J. Paul Getty Museum; Leila Sauvage, Conservator, Rijksmuseum and lecturer, University of Amsterdam; Donald Farnsworth, Artist, Papermaker, Magnolia Editions
Organized by The Drawing Foundation in partnership with the Conservation Center of the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, in association with Master Drawings New York 2024.
 
January 30, 2024, 4:30 p.m.
Annual Master Drawings Symposium
The annual Master Drawings Symposium is returning for its eighth year to showcase the best and brightest young scholars in the drawings field. The program will feature talks by Ricciardi prize-winning authors published in Master Drawings. The winner(s) of the 2024 prize will be announced.
Location: Villa Albertine, The Payne Whitney Mansion; 972 5th Avenue
Speaker: Luming Guan, currently a Diamonstein-Spielvogel Fellow in The Metropolitan Museum's Department of Drawings and Prints, will discuss new insights into a British Museum sheet by 15th century German artist Martin Schongauer, illuminating how an intriguing detail led to a fascinating iconographic study.
Organized in partnership with Master Drawings New York 2024 and is made possible through the generous support of the Tavolozza Foundation.

January 31, 2024, 5:00 p.m.
Panel Discussion: Drawn to Teaching / Teaching through Drawings: University Art Museum Collections
Since 1832, university art museums in the United States have offered an important opportunity to engage with original artworks. Collections of drawings frequently form the core of such teaching institutions, allowing faculty and students from across the university – far beyond just the art and art history departments – to encounter historic objects. With learning as a central tenet, drawings collections at university art museums are uniquely situated to develop museum audiences and practitioners, and to respond to challenges and concerns in creative or experimental ways. This panel brings together curators from university art collections to discuss their approaches to and responsibilities in collecting, exhibiting, and teaching with drawings.
Location: Institute of Fine Arts, New York University; 1 East 78th Street
Moderator: Edouard Kopp, John R. Eckel, Jr. Foundation Chief Curator at Menil Drawing Institute, The Menil Collection
Panelists: Elisa Germán, Lunder Curator of Works on Paper and Whistler Studies, Colby College Museum of Art; Laura M. Giles, Heather and Paul G. Haaga Jr., Class of 1970, Curator of Prints and Drawings, Princeton University Art Museum; Joachim Homann, Maida and George Abrams Curator of Drawings, Harvard University Art Museums; Victoria Sancho Lobis, Sarah Rempel and Herbert S. Rempel '23 Director, Benton Museum of Art Pomona College
 
February 1, 2024, 3 p.m.
Exhibition Tour: Ellsworth Kelly Sketchbooks
The works that Ellsworth Kelly (1923–2015) created over his six-decade career feature economic lines, reduced geometries, and uninterrupted planes of color. They appear strikingly simple yet embody a semblance of ease that conceals the effort and experimentation involved in producing them. Kelly's sketchbooks—which largely remained private throughout the artist's lifetime—reveal the particularities of his unique process. Their pages hint at the real-world references that often inspired his seemingly non-objective compositions. This installation celebrates the centennial of Kelly's birth and includes several works that came to MoMA as gifts of Jack Shear, including 25 of the artist's sketchbooks.
Location: Museum of Modern Art; 11 West 53 Street
Speaker: Tour the year-long installation at MoMA of Ellsworth Kelly's Sketchbooks with Samantha Friedman, Associate Curator, Museum of Modern Art.
 
February 2, 2024, 10 a.m.
Panel Discussion: Picasso on the Hudson
Coinciding with The Hispanic Society's exhibition, Picasso and Spanish Classics (November 2, 2023 – February 4, 2024), this panel provides an opportunity for a fascinating conversation about Picasso, his views of Spanish literature and how we understand artworks today.
Location: Hispanic Society Museum & Library; 613 W 155th St
Organized by The Drawing Foundation and The Hispanic Society Museum & Library in association with Master Drawings New York 2024.
 
February 3, 2024, 3 p.m.
Panel Discussion: Modern Contemporary Drawings influencing Sculpture
Early 20th-century Black artists primarily depicted portraits of people and daily life as they lived it. In the late 20th century and now the 21st century, there was a shift in the narratives that spotlighted life for African people throughout the diaspora. Narratives have tilted towards social justice themes with some futuristic elements. A dynamic conversation with artists and curators will focus on these expanding perspectives and how they engage new and existing collectors, as well as public interest and support.
Location: The National Arts Club; 15 Gramercy Park South
Moderator: Savona Bailey-McClain, Executive Director and Chief Curator, West Harlem Art Fund
Speakers: Sanford Biggers, artist; Coby Kennedy, artist; Denise Murrell, Merryl H. and James S. Tisch Curator at Large, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Tschabalala Self, artist
Organized by The Drawing Foundation and the West Harlem Art Fund association with Master Drawings New York 2024.
 
The 18th edition of Master Drawings New York will feature 26 exhibitors from New York, London, Paris, Madrid, and Brussels including: Didier Aaron, Paris, London, and New York;  Abbott & Holder, London; Agnews in association with Adler Beatty, London; Ambrose Naumann Fine Art and Harry Gready, New York; Christopher Bishop Fine Art, New York; Patrick Bourne & Co.; Colnaghi Elliot Master Drawings Ltd., London, Madrid, and New York;  Marty de Cambiaire, Paris, London; Galerie 1900-2000, Paris and New York; Graham Shay 1857, New York; Nicholas Hall and W. M. Brady & Co., New York; Hazlitt Ltd., London; Imperial Art, Paris; Hans P. Kraus Jr. Fine Photographs, New York; Lullo Pampoulides, London; Mireille Mosler Ltd., New York; Victoria Munroe Fine Art, New York; Jill Newhouse Gallery, New York; David Nolan Gallery in collaboration with Donald Ellis Gallery, New York; Stephen Ongpin Fine Art, London; Guy Peppiatt Fine Art, London; Robilant + Voena, London and New York; Shepherd W&K Galleries, New York; Robert Simon Fine Art, New York and Tuxedo Park, NY; Sprüth Magers, London, Berlin, Los Angeles and New York; Trezza, New York.

Master Drawings New York (MDNY) is the premier U.S. drawings showcase, a well-established hybrid art fair and art walk on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The 18th annual show in 2024 will be held January 27 to February 3, with a preview on January 26. Highlighting important work from an important group of galleries known for their expertise, scholarship, and connoisseurship, the show is timed to coincide with the drawing auctions at Christie's and Sotheby's and the last few days of The Winter Show. Covering 40 city blocks, the week-long show, which began in 2006, presents more than two dozen galleries showing work from the 15th to 21st centuries. An exhibitor map and event calendar will be distributed at the various locations. Follow Master Drawings New York on Instagram and Facebook.

The Drawing Foundation is a community-focused non-profit dedicated to the study and appreciation of drawings. The Drawing Foundation seeks to cultivate a network of individuals interested in and passionate about drawings by connecting arts professionals and practitioners to emerging scholarship and innovative programming, and to each other, in an effort to promote engagement with drawing–both historic and contemporary practices– and its various audiences. By nurturing a community of individuals devoted to this fundamental form of mark-making, The Drawing Foundation will help foster the next generation of scholars and students, curators and audiences, dealers and collectors, and artists and art-lovers.