500 Years of Italian Drawings from the Princeton University Art Museum

The Princeton University Art Museum’s collection of Italian drawings is renowned for its quality, scope, and scholarly importance. This exhibition showcases ninety-five works from the late fifteenth to early twentieth centuries by numerous artists including Parmigianino, Guercino, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, and Amedeo Modigliani. 500 Years of Italian Drawings from the Princeton University Art Museum explores topics such as technique, artistic education, experimentation, and the pivotal role played by drawing in the creative process. As the backbone of training and imagination since the Renaissance, drawing allowed artists to conceptualize and realize a design on paper, constituting the first mark-making step toward a project’s final realization as a painting, sculpture, or building. Representations of the human figure dominate the exhibition, signifying the centrality of this subject in Italian art. These arresting works—drawn from life and the imagination—convey the universal appeal of drawing as one of the most intimate and revelatory manifestations of artistic practice.