Michelangelo at The Met

Michelangelo at The Met

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Thu 26 Oct 2017 6:56 AM

If ever a Florence lover needed an excuse to travel transatlantic, the forthcoming exhibition at New York’s beloved Met provides it.

“Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer”, opening on November 13 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, is set to present an impressive range and number of works by the artist: 128 of his drawings, three of his marble sculptures, his earliest painting and his wood architectural model for a chapel vault. A substantial body of complementary works by his teachers, associates, pupils and artists who were influenced by him or who worked in collaboration with him will also be displayed for comparison and context.

Selected from 50 public and private collections in the United States and Europe, including The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; the Royal Collection and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Windsor; the Uffizi and its Department of Drawings and Prints, Florence; the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence; the Musée du Louvre, Paris; the Casa Buonarroti, Florence; the Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples; the Albertina, Vienna; the British Museum, London; and the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana and Fabbrica di San Pietro in Vaticano, Vatican City, the exhibition will bring together the largest group of original drawings by Michelangelo ever assembled for public display. Many of the drawings rank among the greatest works of draftsmanship produced. Extraordinary and rare international loans will include the complete series of masterpiece drawings he created for his friend Tommaso de’ Cavalieri and a monumental cartoon for his last fresco in the Vatican Palace.

In a press release, Dr. Carmen C. Bambach, curator of the exhibition, commented, “This selection of more than 200 works will show that Michelangelo’s imagery and drawings still speak with an arresting power today. Five hundred years seem to melt away in looking at his art.”

The New York show is expected to broaden the conversation about the artist and present an opportunity to see many works that are never displayed together. We can see him thinking—almost having a conversation on the sheet of paper—and there is a sense of intimacy and immediacy, as if looking over his shoulder.

Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer

November 13, 2017–February 12, 2018
The Met Fifth Avenue, The Tisch Galleries, Gallery 899, 2nd floor, New York

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