July, 2013
Haynes Galleries presents
“The Art of Drawing: Line, Texture, Form and Light”
July 19 to August 17, 2013
Reception: Friday, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. July 19, 2013
NASHVILLE — What’s in a drawing? A pencil mark put down on paper, loosely tracing the curve of a woman’s hip or tightly rendering a frayed basketball net, drooping on a windless day. A swath of charcoal smudged — not in haste, but in care, accentuating the hollow under a cheekbone or a wrinkle on a collar. A scribble of pastel from which a boy’s profile emerges regally.
Haynes Galleries is pleased to present “The Art of Drawing: Line, Texture, Form and Light,” featuring works on paper by more than 30 representational artists — including such masters as Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, Norman Rockwell, and Andrew, Jamie and N.C. Wyeth. The show runs July 19-August 17 at 1600 Division St., on the historic Music Row Roundabout. An opening reception will take place from 6 to 8 p.m. Friday, July 19. The event is free and open to the public.
These works provide a glimpse into the creative mind — showing work in its various stages of planning, from early sketches to finished drawings. Though some consider works on paper to be studies or stages leading up to a finished painting, this exhibit will cause viewers to reconsider the medium.
“Drawing is at the heart of all representational art,” says gallery owner Gary R. Haynes. “It all starts with drawing — whether with a brush, pen, pencil or just a stick. But a drawing doesn’t have to be just the beginning. It can be an end. A beautiful, expressive, captivating end.”
This exhibit is truly comprehensive, highlighting the best of the best from established 19th and 20th century visionaries, as well as a range of works from contemporary realists including Morton Kaish, Anthony Ryder, Burton P. Silverman, Lea Colie Wight, Richard Greathouse, Milixa Morón, and Philip Michelson.
These artists employ a variety of mediums including pencil, pastel, charcoal, and pen to create everything from a quick gestural sketch by Kaish to the polished and perfect Basketball Hoop by Michelson.
Among the highlights of the show are an early study for Andrew Wyeth’s Spring Fed from the Metropolitan Museum of Art portfolio — every bit as arresting as the resulting painting — and John Singer Sargent’s charcoal portrait Sir William Hedworth Williamson, 10th Baronet.
However, this show isn’t reserved for figures in art history. Contemporary artists such as Jeremy Lipking, who has emerged as one of the country’s finest realist painters and draftsmen, breathe light and life into the genre. His In Profile is an exquisite graphite portrait reminiscent of the Old Masters, yet compellingly fresh. The drawings of Nicholas Raynolds are so precise, so perfectly rendered that they feel like photographs. And Jacob Collins, a leader in the revival of classical painting, is equally adept on paper. The founder of the Water Street Atelier, The Grand Central Academy of Art, and the Hudson River Fellowship, Collins manipulates line and light to create transcendent figure drawings.
As Salvador Dali famously said, “Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is no possibility of cheating. It is either good or bad.”
At Haynes Galleries, the drawing is all good.