The Princeton University Art Museum’s collection of Italian drawings is renowned for its quality, scope, and scholarly importance. This exhibition showcases ninety-five works from the late fifteenth to early twentieth centuries by numerous artists including Parmigianino, Guercino, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, and Amedeo Modigliani. 500 Years of Italian Drawings explores topics such as technique, artistic education, experimentation, and the pivotal role played by drawing in the creative process. As the backbone of training and imagination since the Renaissance, drawing allowed artists to conceptualize and realize a design on paper, constituting the first mark-making step toward a project’s final realization as a painting, sculpture, or building. Representations of the human figure dominate the exhibition, signifying the centrality of this subject in Italian art. These arresting works—drawn from life and the imagination—convey the universal appeal of drawing as one of the most intimate and revelatory manifestations of artistic practice.

Curated by Laura M. Giles, Heather and Paul G. Haaga Jr., Class of 1970, Curator of Prints and Drawings

The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art
October 14, 2023 – January 21, 2024

Benton Museum of Art, Pomona College
February 16 – June 23, 2024

Image: (detail) Luca Cambiaso, Study for the Return of Ulysses, 1565. Pen and brown ink and brush and brown wash on brown laid paper, squared in red chalk. 19.7 × 34.4 cm. Princeton University Art Museum. Laura P. Hall Memorial Collection (x1946-155).