The Benton Celebrates the Art of Drawing!
Adventures in Collecting Drawings
Conversation with Laura Giles, Curator of Prints and Drawings at Princeton University Art Museum and Jack Shear, Executive Director of the Ellsworth Kelly Foundation
Opening Reception
Celebrate 500 Years of Italian Drawings from the Princeton University Art Museum and Infinity on Paper: Drawings from the Collections of the Benton Museum of Art and Jack Shear
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Laura Giles is the Heather and Paul G. Haaga Jr., Class of 1970, Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Princeton University Art Museum. Prior to coming to Princeton in 2000, Laura held curatorial positions at the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas and the Art Institute of Chicago. Her scholarly fields of interest are Italian Renaissance and Baroque art, and European and American drawings and prints from the 16th century to the present. She has organized a wide range of exhibitions at Princeton, including Cézanne in Focus: Watercolors from the Henry and Rose Pearlman Collection; Between Image and Concept: Recent Acquisitions in African American Art; 500 Years of Italian Master Drawings from the Princeton University Art Museum; States of Health: Visualizing Illness and Healing, and Elizabeth Colomba: Repainting the Story. She received her B.A. at Swarthmore College, her M.A. at Williams College, and her Ph.D. at Harvard University, where her dissertation focused on the paintings and drawings of Carracci follower Giacomo Cavedone.
Jack Shear is an artist, collector and the President of the Ellsworth Kelly Foundation. He lives and works in Spencertown, NY. Shear has also built a collection of works on paper ranging from old masters to contemporary artists. His collection has previously been exhibited at the Blanton Museum of Art (2021) and at The Drawing Center in a three-part exhibition, Ways of Seeing, (2021-2022). In addition to exhibitions of his own collection, he has worked on curatorial projects focused on drawings, including Drawn from Artists’ Collections at The Drawing Center and Hammer Museum (1999) and Twice Drawn: Modern and Contemporary Drawings in Context at the Tang Teaching Museum (2006).
Shear currently serves on the Drawings & Prints Committee at the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the executive council of the museum’s International Council. He is also a trustee for the Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies.
Banner image: Manuel López, El Pato, La Morena, plants and a drawing (Large Study), 2021. Graphite on paper, 14 5/8 x 11 in. (37.15 x 27.94 cm). Pomona College Collection, Art Acquisitions and Programs Fund, P2022.22.5
