Master Drawings New York (MDNY), one of North America’s most important fairs for works on paper, marks its 19th edition this week with more than 29 exhibitors showing in two dozen gallery spaces across New York City’s Upper East Side (and one in Chelsea).
This year’s lineup is the most diverse in fair history, according to MDNY. First-time participants include Galerie Charles Ratton & Guy Ladrière, Les Enluminures, Nonesuch Gallery, The Maas Gallery, Perspective Fine Art, Galerie Gmurzynska, AH Art and C.G. Boerner.
This latest iteration is the second edition since the fair was acquired by Christopher Bishop Fine Art, the New York gallery specialising in drawing and painting from the 15th through the early 20th centuries. MDNY was previously operated by the London dealers Crispian Riley-Smith and Margot Gordon, who founded the fair in 2006.
Bishop—who participated in MDNY for a decade as a dealer before the acquisition—said in a statement that the event stands apart from others in the art-world calendar because of its camaraderie of works-on-paper enthusiasts.
“People come from across the country to look, discuss and debate the history, technique and importance of drawing,” Bishop says. “The experience therefore is not just of viewing artworks, but of being part of a larger community. Whom you run into during the week is as key as what you see.”
Highlights this year include six works by Caspar David Friedrich on view at C.G. Boerner (the single participant now showing in Chelsea). Friedrich’s works include a pen-and-ink drawing, a drawing in pencil, a sepia drawing, a watercolour, an etching and a woodcut. The watercolour—Morgennebel (Morning Fog) – Bohemian Landscape May 16, 1828—was unknown to scholars before the gallery discovered it at auction. (Next month, the Metropolitan Museum of Art will open the first major retrospective of Friedrich’s work in a US institution.)
Jill Newhouse Gallery will showcase an Eva Gonzalès sketchbook, one of just three known examples. Gonzalès was a protégé of Edouard Manet and one of the most important women Impressionist painters. She died at age 34 in childbirth, leaving less than 100 paintings. MDNY marks the first time the sketchbook will be displayed in the US, the fair said.
Mireille Mosler will show Who is He that Cometh from Edom with Dyed Garments from Bozrah? (1862) by Simeon Solomon, the last and youngest member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. His work often referenced his Jewish heritage and, more subtly, his sexual orientation. Following an arrest in 1873 for homosexual acts, Solomon’s artistic career never recovered. He died in 1905 in the St Giles Workhouse from complications tied to alcoholism. Public appreciation for Solomon’s work has increased since the 1980s, thanks to his inclusion in several important museum shows, like Tate Britain’s Queer British Art 1861–1967 in 2017.
- Master Drawings New York, New York City, 1-8 February
