The Drawing Institute at The Morgan Library & Museum

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Roundtable on Friendship and Drawings
Event Report

On Friday, February 10, 2012, the Drawing Institute hosted a roundtable conversation devoted to the topic Friendship and Drawings. Bringing together museum and academic art historians, it was the first of a series of such scholarly events intended to encourage a discussion of drawings as they edify or proceed from broader cultural, historical, or literary currents across different periods and cultures. The ten speakers presented talks on works from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries. Subjects ranged from drawings representing friends, those exchanged as tokens of friendship, or inspired by literary, poetic or social formulations of the concept of friendship. In addition to the speakers, the event was attended by twenty invited guests, who engaged in a lively, informal dialogue on the materials presented.

To complement the roundtable discussion, a selection of fourteen Alba Amicorum or Friendship Albums from the Morgan's permanent collection was installed in Gilder Lehrman Lobby. Filled with handwritten mementos and illustrations by the compiler's friends, these intimate and beautifully crafted keepsake books are emblematic of the theme of friendship. The presentation of the Morgan's albums in conjunction with several papers that specifically explored the subject of the Alba Amicorum, stimulated in-depth conversation about the creation, role, and use of these volumes.

PROGRAM

Welcome and Introductory Remarks
Modes of Friendship in Antiquity and the Renaissance: Dialogues, Letters and Drawings
Linda Wolk-Simon, Charles W. Engelhard Curator and Head of the Department of Drawings and Prints, Morgan Library & Museum

Morning Session, 10:15 a.m.–12:00 p.m.: Italy and the North
The Pleasure of Interpretation and the Community of Friends:
the Portrait of Ginevra de' Benci by Leonardo da Vinci
Lina Bolzoni, Professor of Italian Literature, Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa

"Muoio di sonno ma non posso dormire, che non mi mandate que' disegni":
Vasari, Borghini, and the Hunt for Drawings
Rick Scorza, Thaw Senior Fellow, Drawing Institute at the Morgan Library & Museum, and Independent Scholar, London

Images of Scipione Borghese as Signs of Bernini's Friendship
Tod Marder, Professor II, Renaissance and Baroque Architecture, Rutgers University

Gifts of Friendship by Netherlandish Draughtsmen around 1600
Stijn Alsteens, Curator, Department of Drawings and Prints, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Camaraderie, Community and Artistic Collaboration in Seventeenth-Century Utrecht
Elizabeth Nogrady, Associate Specialist, Old Master Paintings, Christie's

12:00 p.m.:
Viewing of Alba Amicorum from the Collection of the Morgan Library & Museum
Eveline Baseggio Omiccioli, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Drawings and Prints, Morgan Library & Museum

Afternoon Session I, 1:30–2:30pm: Germany and France
The Hans Wilpert Zoller Album Amicorum
Freyda Spira, Assistant Curator, Department of Drawings and Prints, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Charles-Antoine Coypel, Curator of the Royal Drawings Collection
Esther Bell, Moore Curatorial Fellow, Department of Drawings and Prints, Morgan Library & Museum

Seurat and Friends: From Out of the Shadows
Nancy Ireson, Junior Fellow, Drawing Institute at the Morgan Library & Museum, and Guest Curator, Courtauld Institute, London

Afternoon Session II, 2:30–3:15pm: Modern and Contemporary
Ray Johnson and the New York Correspondence School
Donna Gustafson, Mellon Liaison for Academic Programs and Curator, Zimmerli Art Museum

Drawings as a Token of Friendship in Contemporary Art
Barbara Rose, Morgan-Menil Fellow, Drawing Institute at the Morgan Library & Museum, and Independent Scholar and Curator, New York

This event was organized by Eveline Baseggio Omiccioli, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Drawings and Prints.