The Art of Disegno: Italian Prints and Drawings from the Georgia Museum of Art

Another exhibition the museum has organized for a far-off venue is The Art of Disegno: Italian Prints and Drawings from the Georgia Museum of Art, which opened this past week at the Snite Museum of Art, in Notre Dame, Ind. Organized by curators Robert Randolf Coleman, who teaches at Notre Dame, and Babette Bohn, of Texas Christian University, the exhibition comprises just over 50 prints and drawings of exceptional quality produced from the 16th to the 18th century by artists including Titian, Parmigianino, and Piranesi. Most of these works come from the collection of Giuliano Ceseri, which is on long-term loan to the Georgia Museum of Art. Ceseri began collecting drawings while a child in Florence, and although he has never received any formal training in art history, his combination of eye and enthusiasm are unmatched. The Art of Disegno provides a chance to experience the work of masters intimately, seeing both their development (through sketches) and the increasing prevalence of printmaking as a way to distribute art more widely.

The exhibition is on view at the Snite until March 1, 2009, and is accompanied by an exhibition catalogue that reproduces each of the works full page and in color with a discussion by Coleman or Bohn. Giancarlo Fiorenza, who served as in-house curator of the exhibition at GMOA and has since moved on to a teaching position in California, supplies an introduction geared to the layman that explains the importance of disegno (or "drawing") in Renaissance artistic academies. The catalogue is for sale through the Georgia Museum of Art shop or, for wholesale orders, through GMOA's Department of Publications.

Image: Agostino Carracci (Italian, 1557-1602), The Madonna and Nursing Child on a Crescent Moon, 1589. Engraving on white paper, 8 3/16 x 6 1/2 inches (sheet). Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia; Extended loan from the collection of Giuliano Ceseri. GMOA 1995.782E