Delacroix’s Secret Devotion to Drawing | 2018-08-23 09:50:49 (Visits: 535 Times) |  | | "The Giaour on Horseback," 1824–26, by Eugène Delacroix (French, 1798– 1863). Pen and iron gall ink with wash over graphite, 7 15/16 inches by 12 inches. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, a gift from the Karen B. Cohen Collection of Eugène Delacroix, in honor of Jane Roberts, 2015. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
NEW YORK—“Many people have some knowledge of Delacroix the painter; far fewer know Delacroix the draftsman,” Ashley E. Dunn said, introducing the exhibition that she organized, “Devotion to Drawing: The Karen B. Cohen Collection of Eugène Delacroix” at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Indeed, even for those unfamiliar with the French Romantic painter’s name, Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863), they would recognize his allegorical painting of the robust, bare-breasted female figure holding the tricolor flag while leading people over a barricade with fallen bodies in the foreground, “Liberty Leading the People.” Now we can see Delacroix’s figure study drawings in preparation for that emblematic painting for the French Republic, along with more than 130 other drawings by the artist, until Nov. 12.
The exhibition celebrates a major gift from Karen B. Cohen, an honorary trustee of the museum. Over the years, Cohen had given The Met about 50 works. Last year, she announced she would give almost all of her entire collection of Delacroix works, about 80 more, to the museum.
“The Met is now the foremost institution for the study of Delacroix outside of Paris. It is an extraordinary achievement,” the president and CEO of the Met, Daniel Weiss, said at a press preview. “[‘Devotion to Drawing’] also marks the first North American exhibition devoted to Delacroix’s draftsmanship in more than 50 years. A number of these works are on view here for the very first time ever, anywhere.”
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