The Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin presents Luminous: 50 Years of Collecting Prints and Drawings at the Blanton an exhibition on view June 8 – September 15, 2013. The exhibition highlights the breadth and depth of the museum’s collection of works on paper and provides a rare opportunity to see some of its finest examples displayed together for the first time.
Over the past five decades, the Blanton has built an encyclopedic collection of prints and drawings concentrating on three major areas: Latin American, European, and American. The museum holds works by masters Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt van Rijn, Francisco Goya, Edgar Degas, Mary Cassatt, Pablo Picasso, Diego Rivera, Jasper Johns, and many others. Comprised of several major gifts and purchases — including the private collections of Leo Steinberg, John and Barbara Duncan, and James and Mari Michener, as well as nearly 400 Old Master drawings acquired as part of the Suida-Manning Collection — the Blanton’s collection has an international reputation for its extraordinary works on paper and serves as a resource for art historians and other researchers in the field. Luminous signals the power of prints and drawings in fostering scholarship, igniting the imagination, and instilling wonder.
Francesca Consagra, the Blanton’s Senior Curator of Prints and Drawings, and European Paintings, describes the exhibition as a lens through which viewers can see how the Blanton built a collection of nearly 16,000 works of art on paper in just 50 years. “The opportunity to systematically review a collection of almost 16,000 works on paper and to select a group of over 150 for presentation is both challenging and highly rewarding. With Luminous, our goal is to present works of great quality and rarity that reflect the collection’s three major areas of concentration as well as works that point to new directions for the collection. We want to celebrate 50 years of thoughtful and inspired stewardship and connoisseurship.”
Exhibition highlights include a self-portrait by Diego Rivera and Vik Muniz’s Jorge, a portrait of the celebrated Brazilian musician Seu Jorge, Luca Cambiaso’s A Sibyl (mid- 1570s), Pablo Picasso’s Minotaure aveugle guide par une fillette dans la nuit (1933-34), Edward Coley Burne-Jones’ Study for the Head of the Virgin (circa 1875), and Mary Cassatt’s In the Opera Box (circa 1880).
Representing a wide range of subjects and techniques, Luminous celebrates the Blanton’s impressive legacy and bright future.
Luminous: 50 Years of Collecting Prints and Drawings at the Blanton is organized by the Blanton Museum of Art. www.blantonmuseum.org