Past Exhibition

Dürer in America

A clump of leaves with a few stems of tall, yellow blossoms are painted on a vertical sheet of tan-colored parchment. The leaves are long and rounded, with prominent, textured veining. A few blades of grass and sprigs of clover are interspersed among the dense clump of leaves. The cowslip blossoms are clusters of bell-shaped yellow petals at the end of a starburst-like formations of pale green tubes. The ground is painted an earthy gray, and the background is left blank. The artist dated the work, 1526, in the lower right corner over a monogram of his initials, AD.
Albrecht Dürer, Tuft of Cowslips, 1526, gouache on parchment, The Armand Hammer Collection, 1991.217.1

Details

  • Dates

    -

  • Locations

    Ground Floor, Central Gallery, Galleries G-7, G-8. G-9 (6,000 sq. ft.)
A clump of leaves with a few stems of tall, yellow blossoms are painted on a vertical sheet of tan-colored parchment. The leaves are long and rounded, with prominent, textured veining. A few blades of grass and sprigs of clover are interspersed among the dense clump of leaves. The cowslip blossoms are clusters of bell-shaped yellow petals at the end of a starburst-like formations of pale green tubes. The ground is painted an earthy gray, and the background is left blank. The artist dated the work, 1526, in the lower right corner over a monogram of his initials, AD.
Albrecht Dürer, Tuft of Cowslips, 1526, gouache on parchment, The Armand Hammer Collection, 1991.217.1

Overview: 36 of the 38 drawings by Dürer known to be in America were shown, together with 80 engravings and 127 woodcuts by the artist. Also on view were 10 books with woodcut illustrations. These loans came from 32 public and private collections as well as the Rosenwald collection at the National Gallery. Organized by the National Gallery to mark the 500th anniversary of the artist's birth, this was the largest exhibition of its kind ever held in the United States.

Organization: The exhibition was organized and designed by Gaillard F. Ravenel with Charles W. Talbot, assistant professor at Yale University and former Kress fellow, and Jay A. Levenson, graduate student at New York University, Institute of Fine Arts. A technical section, developed by Richard Field of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, included 50 prints with texts and labels dealing with problems of connoisseurship, involving watermarks, paper restoration, and forgeries.

Attendance: 131,235

Catalog: Dürer in America: His Graphic Work, by Charles W. Talbot, notes by Gaillard F. Ravenel and Jay A. Levenson. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1971.

Brochure: Dürer and America. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1971. A special 16-page illustrated essay by Wolfgang Stechow, 1970-1971 Kress Professor, based on his Sunday lecture held on 25 April.

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