Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Drawing in Tintoretto’s Venice

October 12, 2018 through January 6, 2019

Jacopo Tintoretto (1518–1594) was among the most distinctive artists of the Italian Renaissance, but his drawings have never received the attention they deserve and remain unfamiliar even to many scholars. Drawing in Tintoretto’s Venice will be the first exhibition since 1956 to explore the drawing practice of this major figure of the Venetian Renaissance and will offer an entirely new perspective on Tintoretto’s evolution as a draftsman, his individuality as an artist, and his influence on a generation of painters in northern Italy. An introductory section of the exhibition will showcase works by Titian, Veronese, Bassano, and other contemporaries as a way to understand both Tintoretto’s sources as well as his originality. The heart of the show, featuring Tintoretto’s distinctive figure drawings—both preparatory drawings and a group of studies after sculptures by Michelangelo and others—will examine the use of drawings within the studio as well as teaching practices in the workshop. A following section will focus on artists—Domenico Tintoretto, Palma Giovane, and others working in Venice during the late sixteenth century—whose drawing style was influenced by Tintoretto’s, while in a final section, visitors will be able to consider an interesting group of drawings, previously attributed to Tintoretto or to Palma Giovane, which have recently been proposed as the work of the young El Greco during his time in Italy.

The exhibition brings together more than seventy drawings and a small group of related paintings from nearly two dozen public and private collections in Europe and the United States, including the Morgan Library & Museum, the National Gallery of Art (NGA), the Uffizi, the Louvre, and the British Museum, among others. Organized to mark the five-hundredth anniversary of the artist’s birth, this presentation coincides in New York with the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibition of Tintoretto portraits. When it travels to the NGA in March 2019, it will join a major retrospective of his paintings.

Drawing in Tintoretto’s Venice is made possible with lead support from the Robert Lehman Foundation, major funding from the Wolfgang Ratjen Stiftung, Liechtenstein, generous support from the Christian Humann Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ricciardi Family Exhibition Fund, Mr. and Mrs. David M. Tobey, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, and Herbert Kasper, and assistance from the Tavolozza Foundation, Diane A. Nixon, Jon and Barbara Landau, Save Venice Inc., and George Wachter.

National Endowment for the Arts

Tintoretto (1518-1594), Study of a seated nude, ca. 1549, black and white chalk on blue paper. Louvre 5385 © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, N.

Selected Images

Tintoretto (1518/19–1594), Seated Male Nude, ca. 1549. Black and white chalk, squared, on blue paper. Musée du Louvre, Paris, inv. 5385. © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY

Titian (1488–1576), Embracing Couple, ca. 1568–70, charcoal and black and white chalk on faded blue paper. The Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge. © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Tintoretto (1518/19–1594), Venus and Vulcan, ca. 1545, black chalk, pen and brown ink with brown and gray wash, bpk Bildagentur / Kup- ferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin /Art Resource, NY. Photography by Jorg P. Anders

Tintoretto (1518/19–1594), Holy Family with the Young St. John, ca. 1549–50, oil on panel. Yale University Art Gallery, Maitland F. Griggs, B.A. 1896, Fund and Leonard C. Hanna, Jr., Class of 1913, Fund.

Tintoretto (1518/19–1594), Study of a Man with Raised Arms, ca. 1562–66, charcoal, heightened with white, on blue paper, squared for transfer, The British Museum, London. ©The Trustees of the British Museum

Tintoretto (1518–1594), Studies of Three Men, for the Last Supper at San Trovaso, ca. 1563–64, black and white chalk. bpk Bildagentur / Kupferstichk- abinett, Staatliche Museen, Berlin, Germany / Art Resource, NY. Photography by Volker-H. Schneider

Tintoretto (1518/19–1594), Study After Michelangelo’s St. Damian, ca. 1545–50, black chalk, heightened with white, on beige paper. Detroit Institute of Arts, Founders Society Purchase, William H. Murphy Fund. Bridgeman Images.

Tintoretto (?) and Workshop (1518/19–1594), Study of Michelangelo’s Samson and the Philistines (recto and verso), ca. 1560–70, charcoal and black chalk with white opaque watercolor on blue paper, The Morgan Library & Museum, Thaw Collection, 2005.234.

Tintoretto (1518/19–1594), Study for Return of the Prodigal Son, ca. 1574–76, charcoal (and black chalk?) with white chalk, on blue paper. Gabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi.

Tintoretto (1518/19–1594), Study for a Man Climbing into a Boat (recto), 1578–79, charcoal, squared in charcoal. The Morgan Library & Museum. Gift of J.P. Morgan, Jr. The Morgan Library & Museum, IV, 76. 

Domenico Tintoretto (1560–1635), Reclining Female Nude, ca. 1590, black and white chalk on blue paper. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image source: Art Resource, NY.

Domenico Tintoretto (1560–1635), Miracle of the Slave, ca. 1611–12, oil over charcoal, squared for transfer. The British Museum, London. © The Trustees of the British Museum.

Attributed to El Greco (ca. 1541–1614), Last Supper, ca. 1575, brown wash with white opaque watercolor, over black chalk, on light brown paper. The Morgan Library & Museum, gift of János Scholz, 1981.96.

Palma Giovane (1544–1628), Christ Carried to the Tomb, ca. 1610, brush and brown and white oil paint over black chalk on oatmeal paper. National Gallery of Art, Washington, Wolfgang Ratjen Collection, Purchased as the Gift of Helen Porter and James T. Dyke, 2007. Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington.