Drents Museum: Quest for Beauty
Sketches and sketchbooks from the Drents Museum collection
The Drents Museum collection Art 1885-1935 includes hundreds of sketches and sketchbooks. Most of these come from the estates of painters’ workshops, which were included in the collection of the Drents Museum as a result of the efforts of the Stichting Schone Kunsten (SSK) or the Foundation of Fine Arts.
From October 2, 2013 until March 9, 2014 the Drents Museum presents an exhibition on the artist’s quest for beauty. Work by Jan Sluijters, Gerrit Willem Dijselhof, Leo Gessel and Piet Mondriaan and others will be shown.
Sketches show us how artists work. These quick drawings are ‘mind flashes’: it often feels as if you are witnessing an idea emerging in an artist’s mind. Far more than paintings, which have been painted layer upon layer, sketches show us the hand and virtuosity of an artist. Nothing, after all, can be hidden in sketches.
The sketchbooks and sketches (torn form sketchbooks or on loose sheets of paper) presented in this exhibition contain ideas for new works and a range of designs for later use. They include travel sketches, animals, landscapes, studies of figures and portraits, but also a few designs for applied art. Some sketches are self-confident and signed, others are very quick notes to remember something seen.
