“It is, indeed, a tribute to the appeal of the sheer granite walls of Katahdin that Church should have made so many studies of this region alone.”[1] -Myron Avery, writer and Maine adventurer American landscape painter Frederic Edwin Church (American, 1826-1900) began visiting the region around Mt. Katahdin, Maine in 1852.  While Church is renowned for...

This post is relevant to the exhibition The Jazz Age: American Style in the 1920s. Godly brawn characterizes the classical subject of this drawing: Hercules and the Nemean Lion.  According to Greek mythology, King Eurystheus tasked Hercules with vanquishing a lion that was terrorizing the region of Nemea.  He ultimately succeeded, killing the animal with his...

Ragged, curvy and relentless, the pussy willow catkins in this print are symbolic of the battle for spring that marks the month of March.  Designed by Theodor van Hoytema (Dutch, 1863-1917) for a 1911 calendar, one can understand the month it represents even without translating the Dutch word at the top: “Maart” or March.  Known...

This figure study of a nude male depicted from the rear in contrapposto, bears the geometric massing and imperfect proportions of the work of a student.  Made in 1957, the drawing is a vestige of the collegiate days of renowned artist Eva Hesse (b. Hamburg, 1936-1970). From 1954-1957, Hesse was a student at the Cooper Union...

Where does a building end and the earth that surrounds it begin? Often, this question is easy to answer. We tend to think of buildings and land supporting them as separate entities. This preliminary drawing by the Weiss/Manfredi Architects for the Museum of the Earth in Ithaca, New York shows us that sometimes buildings and...

Daniel Marot, architect, decorative designer and engraver fled, like many other Huguenot workers, from France to Holland due to the revocation of the Edict of the Nantes in 1685.  The Edict had offered measures to ensure religious liberty and its revocation sent shock waves through Protestant communities who were no longer protected.  Bringing his talent...

As a young child, Louise Nevelson (1899-1988), born Leah Berliawsky, immigrated to the United States from Kiev, then part of the tumultuous Russian Empire (and the capital of present-day Ukraine).  She and her family settled in Maine, where she adopted the more American name, Louise.  After her 1920 marriage, Nevelson enmeshed herself in the New...

In 16th century Germany, the popularity of Doppelpokal, better known as double goblets or cups, and the taste for elegant, classicized forms are reflected in this small print by Hieronymus Hopfer (German, active ca. 1520-1530). As the ancestors of wine glasses, double cups, which fit over each other at the rim, were intended for ceremonial...

This large, circular drawing (1959-69-9), nearly three feet in height and width, is a study for a glass mosaic installed at the Wisconsin State Capital Building in Madison, Wisconsin.  Designed by Kenyon Cox (American, 1856-1919), this drawing was probably one of several preparatory works that Cox made before cutting, arranging, and gluing tiny glass tesserae, or pieces, to translate the drawn...