Master Impressions from the UAMA Collections: Albrecht Dürer
August 7, 2007 - January 6, 2008
Albrecht Dürer, The Holy Trinity, 1511
Woodcut on laid paper, 15 7/8 x 11 3/8 inches
Gift of Mr. Peter Licavoli
1982.008.002
The six prints presented in this exhibition highlight the visionary
skill and
technical mastery in relief and intaglio printmaking of German
artist Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528).
Born in Nuremberg, Dürer trained in metalworking with his father,
a
goldsmith, before apprenticing to the painter and book illustrator
Michael Wolgemut. In 1494, Dürer traveled to Venice, and was thus
one of the first northern European artists to experience the Italian
Renaissance firsthand; as a result, he soon emerged as the leading
figure in the Northern European Renaissance. By the time Dürer
visited
Italy again in 1505, he had achieved renown as the most celebrated
German artist of his time. Dürer's fame by this point resulted
largely
from the distribution of his woodcuts and engravings; as his career
progressed, he gained additional recognition for his paintings,
drawings, and theoretical texts on art, geometry, and human proportion.
The first Dürer print to enter the UAMA collections was Christ
on
the
Mount of Olives, a gift to the Museum from C. Leonard Pfeiffer in
1946.
The works on view are almost exclusively religious in nature --
expressly, scenes from the life of Christ. Dürer's prints
demonstrate
extraordinary skill in the rendering of minute detail, and they reveal
inventive iconographic models that would influence artists for
generations to come.
In 1528, just before Dürer's death, the great humanist scholar
Desiderius Erasmus praised the artist's proficiency in printmaking:
"What does [Dürer] not express in black lines? Shade, light,
radiance,
projections, depressions. . . . He even depicts what cannot be depicted
. . . characters and emotions -- in fine, the whole mind of man as it
shines forth . . . and almost the very voice."
- Susannah Maurer, Assistant Curator
Master Impressions from the UAMA Collections:
This series of small, rotating presentations showcases the exceptional
breadth and depth of the UAMA Old Master print collection. These
selections offer focused consideration of a particularly significant
artist or theme, and elucidate some of the most influential developments
in the Western printmaking tradition.
