The Drawing Institute at The Morgan Library & Museum

Parmigianino (Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola; 1503–1540)
Studio Interior
Pen and brown ink on paper; framing lines in pen and black ink
5 1/2 x 4 7/8 inches (141 x 125 mm)
Inscribed at lower right, in pen and brown ink, "parmesan".
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1910; IV, 46

The Drawing Institute at The Morgan Library & Museum is devoted to the study of the history, collecting, function, interpretation, conservation, and theory of old master and modern drawing with the goal of stimulating new lines of investigation and discourse. The Drawing Institute supports research through annual fellowships; publications; small, focused exhibitions; and an ongoing series of symposia, seminars, and lectures. Cooperative programming and joint fellowships with the IMAF (International Music and Art Foundation) Centre at The Courtauld Gallery in London and with the Menil Drawing Institute and Study Center in Houston are a further component of the Drawing Institute's program. Future plans call for the awarding of an annual prize for a groundbreaking exhibition or publication in the drawings field.

The Drawing Institute is supported by a generous gift from Eugene V. Thaw, a Life Trustee and long-time benefactor of the Morgan and noted drawings collector, and is overseen by Linda Wolk-Simon, Charles W. Engelhard Curator and Head of the Department of Drawings and Prints. Members of the advisory committee are Morgan Trustee and collector Karen B. Cohen; Elizabeth Cropper, Dean, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, The National Gallery of Art, Washington; collector and museum patron Agnes Gund, Philippe de Montebello, former director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and now a professor at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University; David Rosand, professor of Art History at Columbia University; Patricia Rubin, Director of the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University; former Andrew W.Mellon Foundation Program Officer, Angelica Zander Rudenstine; Perrin Stein, Curator of Drawings and Prints at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Robert Storr, Dean of the Yale University School of Art. Mr. Thaw will serve as an honorary member of the advisory committee, and William M. Griswold, Director of the Morgan Library & Museum, is an ex-officio member.

Public Programs:

Rembrandt and the Crying Boy: A Question of Method
Wednesday, January 25, 6:30 p.m.

Vasari, Borghini and Papal Portraits
Wednesday, April 18, 6:30 p.m.

Minimalist Drawing: The 1960s and 1970s
Friday, April 27, 10:30 a.m.-5 p.m.

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The Drawing Institute is pleased to welcome the 2011-2012 class of fellows:

Rick Scorza, Independent Scholar, London
Thaw Senior Fellow
Vincenzo Borghini's Collection of Drawings

This investigation aims to reconstruct, to the fullest extent possible, Vincenzo Borghini's collection of drawings. Borghini (1515–1580) compiled his collection with the help of his great friend, the artist-biographer Giorgio Vasari, for whom he served as iconographic adviser. Prime examples by Pontormo, Bronzino, and by Vasari himself were hung on the walls of Borghini's rooms in the Ospedale degli Innocenti in Florence, but the majority of the drawings he collected were preserved in several albums similar to Vasari's famous Libri di disegni, complete with mounts and inscriptions. Dismembered long ago, their contents widely dispersed, these albums will be the focus of my research.

Barbara Rose, Independent Scholar and Curator, New York
Morgan-Menil Fellow
The Impact of Medieval Illumination on Modern Drawing

The influence of Romanesque illuminated manuscripts of the Apocalypse by the medieval Spanish monk Beatus of Liebena on modern drawing, specifically on the work of Miró, Matisse, Léger, and Picasso, is the focus of this project.

Nancy Ireson, Guest Curator, Courtauld Gallery, London
Junior Fellow
Seurat and Physicality

Following recent advances in the understanding of Seurat's drawings as physical objects, this study considers how the artist's working process affects interpretive readings of his work. Most notably, 'Seurat and Physicality' asks how the artist's touch connects with wider attitudes to the human body in Third Republic France.

Meredith Martin, Assistant Professor, Art Department, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA
Junior Fellow
Art, Diplomacy, and Intercultural Encounters in France from Louis XIV to the Revolution

This project explores the dynamic relationship among art, diplomacy, and
cross-cultural exchange in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France,
focusing on France's diplomatic relations with India, Southeast Asia, and
the Ottoman Empire. Drawings, as well as other art objects and gifts, played
a vital role in these exchanges in their ability to represent and shape
perceptions about diplomatic events, products, and participants.

Lauren Jacobi, PhD Candidate, Institute of Fine Arts, New York
Pre-Doctoral Fellow
The Life of a Street: Rome's Canale di Ponte Seen through Drawings
(ca. 1450–1527)
Situated across the Tiber from Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome, the understudied Canale di Ponte was one of the city's most important streets during the early modern period. At the start of the sixteenth century, twenty-seven banks operated on or close to it and it played a key role in several pilgrimage routes. The primary aim of this project is to examine drawings that take the street and its two attendant piazzas as their subject. Such a study offers a fuller picture of early modern financial and quotidian street life in Rome and the ritual ceremonies that took place on the Canale di Ponte.