The Eye of the Beholder: European Drawings & Prints From the Pulgram-McSparran Collection March 11, 2010

The Museum of Art has an outstanding collection of the graphic work of early 20th-century art, particularly the work of the German Expressionists. Complementing this rich array of works are the important prints and drawings that have come to the Museum as part of the Pulgram-McSparran gift. Ernst Pulgram amassed an important collection of European graphic art ranging from Piranesi and Rodin to the German Expressionists and Giacometti. This exhibition follows an earlier exhibition drawn from the Pulgram-McSparran collection that featured drawings by Viennese artists Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele. The present exhibition includes drawings and prints by artists such as George Grosz, whose Hogarthian critique of post-WWI Germany still sears the mind; Ernst Kirchner, a leading figure in Die Brucke and the German Expressionist movement; and Oskar Kokoschka, whose vigorous style is characteristic of the later generation of Expressionists. Among the group of works are less typical but lyrical landscapes by Kirchner, Lovis Corinth, and Erich Heckel. This second component of the Pulgram-McSparran Collection features the social commentary, bold graphic imagery, and delectation of the female form that is embodied in the work of outstanding European artists from roughly 1920 to 1950.