The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College will present an exhibition of the finest early collection of European drawings in the United States this fall from September 16 through December 11, 2011. On Friday, September 16, at 6pm in Taylor Hall (room 203), William Breazeale, Curator of the Crocker Art Museum, will deliver a lecture entitled “Fragonard on the Frontier: The Crocker Collection of Old Master Drawings.” This will be followed by an opening reception at the Art Center.
Previously the exhibition was seen at both the Crocker Art Museum (Sacramento, CA) and the Portland (OR) Art Museum, however this is its only East Coast presentation.
A Pioneering Collection: Master Drawings from the Crocker Art Museum will include 57 rarely seen works by artists such as Albrecht Durer, Fra Bartolommeo, Anthonie van Dyck, Francois Boucher, and Jean-Auguste-Cominque Ingres. The exhibition will be divided thematically into four sections of drawings from Italy, the Low Countries, France, and Central Europe.
These drawings date from the late 15th- to the mid-19th centuries and were purchased between 1869-71 by forward-thinking railroad magnate E. B. Crocker, forming the basis of the Crocker Museum’s master drawings collection. In total, the Crockers purchased 1344 master drawings and 700 paintings during their time in Europe and these formed the basis of their private art gallery, which opened in 1872, featuring visitors like the queen of Hawaii and former U.S. President Grant. Following the death of Edwin Crocker, his wife Margaret transferred the gallery to the California Museum Association, now the Crocker Art Museum. Their old master drawing collection was one of the first historically to be opened to the public in 1885.
This exhibition was organized in celebration of the Crocker’s Anne and Malcolm McHenry Works on Paper Study Center and exhibition space, designed to significantly enhance public access to this collection of master drawings.
A catalogue by lead author and Crocker Art Museum curator Wiliam Breazeale; Cara Dufour Denison, curator at the Morgan Library and Museum; Stacey Sell, associate curator of Old Master drawings at the National Gallery of Art, and Freyda Spira, research associate at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, accompanies the exhibition and will be available at the Art Center gift shop (Paul Holberton Publishing, 2010, $35).
Admission to the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center is free. The Art Center is open to the public Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, 10:00am–5:00pm; Thursday, 10:00am–9:00pm; and Sunday, 1:00–5:00pm. Located at the entrance to the historic Vassar College campus, the Art Center can be reached within minutes from other Mid-Hudson cultural attractions, such as Dia:Beacon, the Franklin Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt national historic sites and homes, and the Vanderbilt mansion. The Art Center is wheelchair accessible. For additional information, the public may call (845) 437-5632 or visit fllac.vassar.edu.
Image: Albrecht Dürer Female Nude with a Staff, 1498 Pen and dark brown ink on cream laid paper, 12 3/16 x 8 11/16 in. Crocker Art Museum, E. B. Crocker Collection.