Comprising more than 23,000 prints, drawings, photographs, and Asian scroll paintings, works on paper represent the largest area of concentration within the Museum's collection. Due to the light and atmospheric sensitivity of these media, artworks must be exhibited on a rotating basis and are housed in the Works on Paper Center. Access is provided to scholars, curators, collectors, and others with a legitimate need to study collection material, by appointment.

Drawings

The drawing collection is one in which the Museum's directors and principal patrons have taken a deep personal interest since the Museum's founding in 1941, resulting in gifts and acquistions of outstanding quality and international significance. Representing drawings from the 17th-century to the present, the collection's strengths include superb examples of the modern French masters as well a range of European, American and Latin American modernist works. Unusual among these is a group of works by British early 20th-century artists working in Vorticism, Surrealism and the Neo-Romanticism.

Selected works from our Works on Paper Drawings collection:

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click to enlarge	Joseph Pennell American, 1860-1926 Columbia Heights in Snow, n.d. Watercolor on paper 12 7/8 x 10" (32.7 x 25.4) Gift Mr. and Mrs. Julian Ganz, Jr. 1973.50.1	click to enlarge	Odilon Redon French, 1840-1916 Le Coeur Revelateur, 1883 Charcoal on brown paper 15 3/4 x 13 1/8" (40 x 33.3cm) Museum purchase 1959.39
click to enlarge	Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot French, 1796-1875 Trees at Musigny, 1840-45 Pencil on paper 16 x 11 5/8" (40.6 x 29.5cm) Museum purchase 1959.44	click to enlarge	Percy Wyndham Lewis English, 1884-1957 Portrait of Ezra Pound, ca. 1920 Charcoal and black grease pencil on paper 11 1/2 x 9" (29.2 x 22.9cm) Gift of Wright S. Ludington 1941.2.16
click to enlarge	Pablo Picasso Spanish, 1881-1973 Woman with a Pitcher, 1919 Pencil over charcoal on paper 25 3/4 x 19 1/8" (70.5 x 48.6cm) Gift of Wright S. Ludington 1946.10.1	click to enlarge	Unknown(formerly attributed to Pieter Brueghel, The Younger) Dutch, 17th c. A Mill by a Stream, n.d. Watercolor Sheet 6 5/8 x 13 1/2" (16.8 x 34.3) Museum purchase 1959.40

Prints

The Museum's 19th-century print collection chronicles the proliferation of early French lithography in holdings of over 4,000 works, presenting an opportunity for insight into the highly-charged politics and culture of the period. Other areas of particular strength include turn-of-the-century American posters, featuring the works of Lucien Metivet, Alphonse Mucha, Maxfield Parrish, and Gustave Klimt; the documents and prints of Felicien Rops; and the artists of the 19th-century Etching Revival, a movement designed to elevate the medium to the same artistic stature as painting and sculpture.

Selected works from our Works on Paper Prints collection:

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click to enlarge	Theophile-Alexandre Steinlen French, 1859-1923 Le Chat Noir Lithograph-poster 24 1/4 x 15 5/8" (61.6 x 39.7cm) Museum purchase, European Deaccessioning fund 1991.17	click to enlarge	Paul Cezanne French, 1839-1906 Les Baigneurs (The Large Bathers), ca. 1898 Color lithograph on laid paper Sheet 16 x 20" (40.6 x 50.8cm) Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Mackinley Helm 1955.20.1
click to enlarge	Leopoldo Mendez Mexican, 1903-1969 I Thirst, 1948 Wood engraving on wove antique white paper Sheet 15 1/4 x 19 7/8" Museum purchase 1995.42.4	click to enlarge	Mokuchu Urushibara (Yoshijuro) Japanese (active England), 1888-1953 Dawn, n.d. Color woodblock Sheet 11 5/8 x 16 3/4" Gift of Mr. and Mrs. T. Frame-Thomson 1979.31.3
click to enlarge	Antonio Canal (Canaletto) Italian, 1697-1768 The Portico with the Lantern Etching/second state 11 7/8 x 17" (30.2 x 43.2cm) Gift of William A. Gumberts in honor of Robert M. Light 1979.9.11	click to enlarge	Felix Hilaire Buhot French, 1847-1898 Westminister Palace, London, 1884 Etching Sheet 13 x 16 3/4" Gift of Arthur and Yolanda Steinman 1985.50.10