A Chance to Get Closer to Genius ; Whats New in the Art Market

Summary

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TODAY is the first day of Londons Master Drawings Week, eight days in which all the dealers who to some extent specialise in drawings of any period from the 15th century to the present day join to exhibit their stock, boosted by Christies and Sothebys who join in the fun with major auctions. For this week, London is the honeypot for all curators, scholars and collectors in the field. Twenty dealers are involved, some in temporarily borrowed premises, and the diligent visitor, if he is to see all their shows, must plan with care his trek from Sothebys in the north to Christies in the south, with detours and backtracks into Bruton and Clifford Streets, Ryder Street and Masons Yard (there are, however, almost as many cafs on the route).

Why drawings? Arent drawings thin gruel compared with paintings? Arent drawings often messy and confused? Well yes, they are if you want to see them in that way, but try instead to see them as offering penetrating insights into an artists aesthetic and working processes. The first idea for a painting may be hastily put down without even a thought for its proportionate placing on a sheet of paper; a variation may follow on the same sheet or another, a figure turned this way instead of that, a gesture or relationship significantly changed, a secondary theme developed, an element discarded and all this in a haste reflected in a drawings style, chalks fragmenting under pressure, the pen sputtering, the wash awash as the adjustments are themselves adjusted.

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A Chance to Get Closer to Genius ; Whats New in the Art Market

In this, no matter how old the drawing, we are close to the artists act of ...

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