Then a more detailed look at the Sam Josefowitz Collection of Rembrandt prints – the most comprehensive and impressive in private hands – as we examine some of the highlights of these graphic masterpieces.
On 7 December 2023, Christie’s will be offering a selection of these prints across two sales in London: Old Masters Part I and The Sam Josefowitz Collection: Graphic Masterpieces by Rembrandt van Rijn.
As he inks, hand wipes, and rolls his final print through the press, he reflects on his philosophy. “My goal is to leave no fingerprints,” he says. All you see is the artist’s work. I’m just another pencil. I’m just another brush. But I want the pencil to be sharpened really well. I want the brush to be sable. And to do that and be completely spontaneous, I trust the materials.”
Join Perrin Stein, Curator, in the Department of Drawings and Prints, for a virtual tour of Jacques Louis David: Radical Draftsman, the first exhibition devoted to works on paper by the celebrated French artist.
David navigated vast artistic and political divides throughout his life—from his birth in Paris in 1748 to his death in exile in Brussels in 1825—and his iconic works captured the aspirations and suffering of a nation, while addressing timeless themes that continue to resonate today. Through the lens of his preparatory studies, the exhibition looks beyond his public successes to chart the moments of inspiration and the progress of ideas.
Visitors will follow the artist’s process as he gave form to the neoclassical style and created major canvases that shaped the public’s perceptions of historical events in the years before, during, and after the French Revolution. Organized chronologically, the exhibition will feature more than eighty drawings and oil sketches—including rarely loaned or newly discovered works—drawn from the collections of The Met and dozens of institutional and private lenders.
Learn more about the exhibition: https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions…
Even if you don’t know the name, chances are you’ve seen a reproduction of one of his prints. What is it about his work that has made it last? Through paintings, drawings, prints, and letters, our exhibition ‘Dürer’s Journeys: Travels of a Renaissance Artist’ brings to life this art history megastar and the people and places he visited.
Excerpts from a Christie’s online article (Feb 28, 2020):
Like Pablo Picasso, his compatriot and peer, Miró had an unwavering commitment to printmaking. Also like Picasso, he created more than 2,000 works in the medium. It’s often said that Miró’s fondness for calligraphic lines — such a distinctive feature of his paintings — lent itself naturally to graphic work.
‘In terms of both the quality and quantity of his output, Joan Miró was one of the most important printmakers of the 20th century,’ says Murray Macaulay, Head of Prints at Christie’s in London.
The son of a watchmaker, Joan Miró was born in Barcelona in 1893. He moved to Paris in the early 1920s and soon joined the Surrealist movement. He also befriended a host of avant-garde writers, such as Max Jacob, Tristan Tzara, Antonin Artaud, André Breton and Paul Eluard.
The first prints Miró ever made were illustrations for Tzara’s 1930 book of poems, L’arbre des Voyageurs. Literary sources would prove to be a constant inspiration for him, with notable examples including Alfred Jarry’s play, Ubu Roi; Stephen Spender’s poem, Fraternity; and the mystic, medieval text, Canticle of the Sun, by St Francis of Assisi.
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