Portraits from the École des Beaux-Arts Paris

This exhibition explores 400 years of portrait drawings, emphasising work from live models. Each week, a different set of four portraits from different centuries and with different formal qualities will be hung ‘in dialogue’ with each other in a specially-built room located in the centre of The Drawing Center’s Main Gallery. Forty portraits have been chosen from the Beaux-Arts de Paris‘ collection based on diverse criteria such as the male and female gestures, caricature, frontal gaze, social class, and profession of the model. The room is inspired by the intimate gallery at the Galleria Doria Pamphilj in Rome where Velazquez’s portrait of Pope Innocent X (c. 1649) hangs, which only accommodates a small number of visitors at a time and was designed to provide a space for close viewing and contemplation without crowds. The remaining 36 portraits in the exhibition will be hung on the gallery’s back wall and will be visible to the visitor throughout the exhibition’s run.

Event website