Join us on Friday, April 25 for an exclusive tour of the acclaimed exhibition Paper, Color, Line: European Master Drawings from the Wadsworth Atheneum, led by curator Oliver Tostmann, Susan Morse Hilles Curator of European Art, at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art.
The tour is scheduled just ahead of the final weekend of the exhibition and offers a wonderful opportunity to see these fantastic drawings before Paper, Color, Line closes on April 27.
By bus: take the 9:40am Greyhound bus from Port Authority arriving at 12:35 to Union Station in Hartford.
Union Station is a 14 minute walk from the Wadsworth Atheneum.
For those who are interested but unable to attend we invite you to watch the wonderful lecture on the exhibition with Oliver Tostmann presented by The Drawing Foundation in association with Master Drawings New York 2025.
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More about Paper, Color, Line:
The Wadsworth Atheneum’s rich collection of European drawings, watercolors, and pastels is little-known and rarely seen. Since the mid-nineteenth century, the museum has acquired by purchase and gift a diverse group of nearly 1,250 European drawings of impressive quality. Paper, Color, Line showcases about sixty to seventy highlights on view for the first time in decades. This long overdue exhibition provides a unique survey of artists engaging with the medium over a span of more than five hundred years.
The museum’s holdings are particularly strong in works from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Renowned drawings by Gustave Courbet, Edgar Degas, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec will be included in this exhibition, as well as highlights by Egon Schiele, Paul Klee, and Joan Miró. The collection is additionally noted for its theatrical designs, particularly its material linked with the Ballets Russes, which encompasses sheets by Pablo Picasso, Léon Bakst, and Natalia Gontcharova. Significant drawings from the Renaissance to the Rococo by artists such as Giorgio Vasari, Carlo Maratti, and Jean-Baptiste Greuze emphasize the timeless appeal of the medium and will complement the overview.
Organized along thematic lines, Paper, Color, Line offers a rich overview of 500 years of draftsmanship in Europe. The variety of schools, techniques, and uses will make for a lively display. While the exhibition explores broader topics such as artistic education, technical innovation, and the art market, it is centered on arresting works that convey the universal appeal of drawings as one of the most revealing expressions of the creative process.
Image: Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (French, 1780-1867)Â Portrait of Louis-Pierre Haudebourt. Pencil on paper. Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. Bequest of Susannah Shickman, 2023.53.12
