THE NEWS CORNER #104

ehkrieke
3 days ago
5 min read

Thursday, 29 May 2025

Born on this day: Edmé Bouchardon (1698-1762)

Dear reader,

As the academic year winds down and travel plans begin to take shape, this month’s edition gathers upcoming exhibitions and new research initiatives for this summer. And since today is Ascension Day, a quiet pause in the calendar, it might be just the right moment to take note of what’s ahead.

Let's go!

EXHIBITIONS

#Mettingen Now on show in the study room of the Draiflessen Collection: A Garden of Flowers. Lilla Tabasso & Crispijn de Passe. The Milanese artist Lilla Tabasso (*1973) was invited to approach the important botanical work Hortus Floridus by the Dutch engraver Crispijn de Passe the Younger (1594-1670). Based on his detailed depictions of plants, she translates the black and white copperplate engravings into sensual, three-dimensional and hyper-realistic sculptures made of Murano glass.

#Amsterdam This year, Amsterdam celebrates its 750 anniversary. The city has much to offer, for residents and visitors alike. That was also the case in the old days. In the exhibition Rembrandt & Amsterdam in the Rembrandt House Museum, containing 60 prints and drawings, you can look through Rembrandt’s eyes and discover what had already made the city unique 400 years ago. On view until 7 September.

#Washington At the National Gallery of Art, the exhibition Little Beasts: Art, Wonder, and the Natural World (on view through November 2, 2025) traces the rich interplay between early modern artists and naturalists in the depiction of insects and animals. Featuring around 75 paintings, prints and drawings, from the intricate studies of Joris Hoefnagel and Jan van Kessel to contemporary reflections by Dario Robleto, the exhibition situates art at the heart of scientific discovery. Juxtaposed with specimens from the Smithsonian, it reveals how artistic observation shaped and still shapes our understanding of the natural world.

#Bremen On show show until 27 July in the Kunsthalle Bremen: Corot to Watteau? On the Trail of French Drawings. This exhibition focuses on the complex histories of 38 selected drawings and two sketchbooks by French artists which were examined over the course of many years as part of a research project into their provenance. Critical attention was paid especially to those drawings that entered the Kunsthalle’s collection during and shortly after the Third Reich as a result of confiscation by the Nazis, particularly of Jewish property.

#Verona On view until 30 June, the exhibition Capolavori su carta. Disegni del Museo Miniscalchi-Erizzo tra Rinascimento e Barocco held at the Fondazione Museo Miniscalchi-Erizzo in Verona, presents the results of a research project on the museum’s graphic holdings. Assembled in the seventeenth century by Ludovico Moscardo, the collection features works primarily by artists from Verona and Venice. Supported by the Getty Paper Project, the exhibition is accompanied by an extensive catalogue and an online database to support future research on these drawings.

#Prague At the Schwarzenberg Palace of the National Gallery in Prague, the exhibition Hieronymus Cock – A Revolution in Printmaking highlights the remarkable contributions of Flemish Renaissance printmaker Hieronymus Cock (1517/18–1570). Together with his wife, Volcxken Diericx (1514/25–1600), he founded the Antwerp-based publishing house Aux Quatre Vents, which became the most influential and prolific printmaking enterprise north of the Alps. The exhibition is on view until 26 June.

#Paris In the exhibition Jewellery Designs. Secrets of the creation, the Petit Palais reveals the diversity and breadth of its collection of drawings of jewellery designs, spanning over a century of creation, from the second half of the 19th to the mid-20th century. Om view until 20 July.

#Williamstown #MA The Clark Institute presents seventeenth- and eighteenth-century European books, drawings, and prints of idealized landscapes in the exhibition Pastoral on Paper. Looking particularly at such familiar figures as Claude Lorrain and Thomas Gainsborough, as well as at Dutch Italianate artists like Nicolaes Berchem, Pastoral on Paper situates cows, mules, maidens, shepherds, ruins, and overgrown landscapes within the rise of pastoral imagery in the early modern imagination. On show until 15 June.

#Cambridge #MA At the Harvard Art Museums, the exhibition Edvard Munch: Technically Speaking offers rare insight into the Norwegian artist’s innovative techniques and the recurring themes across his paintings, woodcuts, lithographs, etchings, and combination prints. Visitors are invited to explore Munch’s artistic process, uncovering his playful approach and fascination with materiality. On view until 27 July.

#Austin #Texas In the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, Texas, you can visit the exhibition A Family Affair: Artistic Dynasties in Europe (Part I, 1500–1700) until June 15. The exhibition tells the stories of 16 printmaking families active in European cities from Antwerp to Prague in the 16th and 17th centuries. The second part of this exhibition, A Family Affair: Artistic Dynasties in Europe (Part II, 1700–1900), opens June 28, 2025.

#NewYork #Met The New Art: American Photography, 1839–1910 in the Met presents a bold new history of American photography from the medium’s birth in 1839 to the first decade of the 20th century. On view from 11 April until 20 July.

#Amsterdam #lastchance On view in the Rijksmuseum until 9 June: American Photography. The more than 200 works on display in American Photography reflect the rich and multifaceted history of photography in the United States. The exhibition presents the country as seen through the eyes of American photographers, and shows how the medium has permeated every aspect of our lives: in art, news, advertising and everyday life.

OPPORTUNITIES

#CFP Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York announces the forthcoming symposium Stradanus at Cooper Hewitt taking place on 6 and 7 November 2025. Cooper Hewitt is home to 143 sheets of drawings and inscriptions by the Netherlandish artist Johannes Stradanus (Jan van der Straet, 1523–1605). From 2021 to 2022, Cooper Hewitt conducted a conservation survey of all of its Stradanus sketches. As a result of conservation work and research, drawings and inscriptions that have been obscured for more than a century have been newly revealed. The museum invites symposium submissions on Stradanus that draw from this new information and Cooper Hewitt’s holdings. DL: 15 June 2025.

#CFP The workshop Resources of Printmaking – Printmaking as Resource will take place March 18–20, 2026, at the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte in Munich and online, in preparation for a special issue of a peer-reviewed journal. It invites contributions on early modern printmaking, with a focus on material processes, environmental impact, and methodological approaches such as ecocriticism and New Materialism. DL: 7 July 2025 (abstracts + short CV).

#Job The Getty Museum in Los Angeles is seeking a new curator of Prints and Drawings.