Not to be missed at this year’s fair is “Timeless Beauty,” a carefully curated exhibition of 35 rarely seen works on paper that celebrate the female form, on loan from the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung in Munich. The institution, which grew from an extraordinary collection of works amassed by Prince Elector Carl Theodor von der Pfalz at Mannheim Castle in latter half of the 18th century, now boasts more than 400,000 illustrations and is considered one of the foremost collections of prints and drawings in Europe.
Presented in a pale blue-green nautilus inspired gallery within the fair’s works on paper section, the pieces in the exhibition — which range from intimate portraits to studies for larger iconographic programs — were executed over a period of more than a half millennium and include drawings by Rembrandt, Gustav Klimt, Henri Matisse, and Egon Schiele. All are authored by men except one, a delicate undated pencil and chalk “Portrait of a Girl” by early 19th-century German painter Marie Ellenrieder.
Of particular note is painter Andrea Mantegna’s studied pen and ink, “Dancing Muse,” circa 1495, a preparatory cartoon for one of the figures in his painting “Parnassus,” 1497, and a charcoal portrait of Comtesse Emilie de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1882, the aunt of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, which was sketched by the artist at age 17. The former, painted by the Paduan artist for Isabella d’Este, Duchess of Mantua, to adorn her studiolo in the Palazzo Ducale, epitomizes the Renaissance ideal of women as goddesses and otherworldly creatures. The work, which had been given to Cardinal Richelieu by Duke Charles I of Mantua in 1627, is now in the collection of the Louvre. In contrast to Mantegna’s seemingly carefree “Dancing Muse” is Dutch artist Hendrick Goltzius’s “Daphne,” a pen, ink, chalk, and wash dated to the close of the 17th century, which exhibits a certain restraint and self-consciousness on the part of its subject.
Other highlights include Rembrandt’s gesture-stroked pen, ink, and chalk “Woman in a Rich Dress Carrying a Palm Frond,” circa 1637; Erich Heckel’s expressive graphite, watercolor, and tempera “Woman at Rest,” 1912; Salvador Dalí’s “Gradiva,” 1932, a pen and ink figure of a female in a cragged landscape with bones of man and beast strewn about; and Picasso’s voluptuous charcoal “Female Nude,” 1905-06. Rendered with an economy of line, the latter is shown standing aloof, her arms relaxed behind her back.
Works by many of the artists represented in the exhibition are available from dealers in the works on paper section. Stephen Ongpin (Stand 715) is tendering Picasso’s pen, black ink, and chalk “Artist and Model (Le peintre et son modèle I),” 1970, along with Egon Schiele’s black crayon “Portrait of a Child (Anton Peschka),” 1918, while Wienerroither & Kohlbacher (Stand 706) is offering several pencil on paper drawings, including Klimt’s spare “Reclining Nude, 1912-13, and Schiele’s “Girl with a Hat,” 1911.
