Metropolitan Museums’s Old Master drawings discussed at The Clark, Nov. 2

George Goldner, chairman of the department of drawings and prints at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a connoisseur of Italian drawings, will present a lively illustrated discussion of the Met’s recent acquisitions of Old Master drawings. Goldner will present highlights of the Italian drawings acquired by the Met since 1993 including works by Perugino, Leonardo, Raphael, Titian, Domenico Tiepolo, and Piranesi. The free lecture will be held on Sunday, November 2, at 3 pm, at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute.

Goldner was head of the photo archives, curator of drawings, and curator of paintings at the Getty Museum from 1979 to 1993. In 1993 Goldner became chairman of the drawings and prints department at the Met and united the greater part of the museum’s varied and extensive collections of graphic art. He focuses on Italian Renaissance art and has written a number of catalogues and articles on the subject. At the Met he co-curated The Drawings of Filippino Lippi and His Circle (1997) and Correggio and Parmigianino: Master Draftsmen of the Renaissance (2001). He is planning a 2010 exhibition of Bronzino drawings.

At the Clark, the exhibition Drawn to Drama: Italian Works on Paper, 1500-1800 features a magnificent group of rarely seen and unpublished sixteenth- through eighteenth-century Italian drawings. Selected from the Clark’s impressive collection of Old Master drawings and the private collection of Robert Loper, Drawn to Drama offers a unique opportunity to view this special group of Italian drawings that are dramatic in subject, composition, and execution. Sixty-five drawings including those by Giorgio Vasari, Guercino, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, Luca Giordano, and Giovanni Battista Tiepolo are featured in the exhibition. Drawn to Drama is on view through January 4.

The Clark is located at 225 South Street in Williamstown, Massachusetts. The galleries are open Tuesday through Sunday from 10 am to 5 pm (daily in July and August). Admission is free November 1 through May 31. Admission June 1 through October 31 is $12.50 for adults, free for children 18 and younger, members, and students with valid ID. For more information, call 413-458-2303 or visit www.clarkart.edu.