Renaissance to Contemporary: Recent Acquisitions in Works on Paper

The works in this exhibition demonstrate the breadth and depth of the Works on Paper collection as a whole. They range in date from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century, and they include prints of various types, drawings in various media, and photographs from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. All have come to the Museum in the last six years through the generosity of donors, either in the form of funds for purchases or as gifts of the works themselves.

Several donors have been very attentive to building the collection of photography. For twenty years William Zewadski has contributed nineteenth-century photographs that complement the Museum’s ancient collections. The image of the statues on the Acropolis is just one of the 130 that made up his latest gift. Dr. Joe Massey has made significant additions in the area of twentieth-century photography. The print by Atget and Abbott and Harry Callahan are the first works by these photographers to enter the collection and are also part of a gift of multiple works by various artists. The photographs by Ralph Gibson are a selection from a total of sixty prints by that artist that were given by the Kuniansky family.

The photograph by South African David Goldblatt was a gift of the Art History Department. Every year since the inception of the collection the department has given at least one work in one of their many areas of teaching interest. The department also contributed to the purchase of Dürer’s engraving of Adam and Eve and the drawing by André Masson.

Two anonymous donors have done much to strengthen the collection. The donors of the Sol LeWitt sculpture on the Emory Quadrangle also made funds available for the purchase of two working drawings by the artist. Another anonymous donation provided for the purchase of the previously mentioned Dürer engraving and the portrait of Philips Gallé by Hendrick Goltzius.

Finally the contributions of a faithful and enthusiastic group of museum supporters, the Patrons of Paper, made possible the purchase of the pristine lifetime impression of Dürer’s Virgin and Swaddled Child, another significant addition to the group of works by this very important printmaker already held by the collection. The Patrons of Paper are E. Pope Bullock and Dr. Sarah McPhee, Thomas Deans, Dr. Jasper Gaunt, James H. Landon, Dr. Elaine Levin, David Parsons, Kevin J. Saunders, R. Charles Shufeldt, and Todd Tautfest and Kevin Esch. We thank them and all of our donors for their generosity and their continued support.