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To Observe and Imagine: British Drawings and Watercolors from the Morgan Library, 1600–1900, was a major survey of the Morgan's important collection of British drawings. The basis of this group dates to Pierpont Morgan's well-known 1909 purchase of virtually all the holdings of Charles Fairfax Murray, the English Pre-Raphaelite artist and collector.

By Any Means brings together about twenty innovative works from the Morgan’s collection, including many recent acquisitions, by artists such as John Cage, Sol LeWitt, Vera Molnar, Robert Rauschenberg, Betye Saar, Gavin Turk, and Jack Whitten.

Nearly fifteen years ago, while the construction of its Renzo Piano-designed expansion was under way, the Morgan embarked on a new program of acquisitions of modern and contemporary drawings.

One of the most original and influential artists of the past three decades, Lisa Yuskavage (American b. 1962) creates works that affirm the integrity of her media (painting, drawing and printmaking) while challenging conventional art historical precedents.

This exhibition explores the history of the medium as a lucid, literate—but not always literal—tool of persuasion.

Over thirty old master drawings by French, Italian, and Northern artists of the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries are featured in this exhibition, with a particular concentration of works by eighteenth-century French draftsmen.

By the mid-eighteenth century, the practice of sketching outdoors with oil paint had become popular among landscape artists.

Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century landscape artists often sketched outdoors in oil paint on paper to capture nature from direct observation. Yet as natural as these scenes look, the vantages were chosen or augmented to draw the viewer into the composition.

Over 120 extraordinary drawings from this superb collection of over two thousand European and American sheets were on view. The selection encompassed all drawing and watercolor media, including ink, chalk, charcoal, crayon, and graphite.