FROM DURER TO CASSATT: FIVE CENTURIES OF MASTER PRINTS FROM THE JONES COLLECTION

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Media Contacts
Lynette Nyman, Minneapolis Institute of Art, (612) 870-3173; lnyman@artsmia.org
Tammy Pleshek, Minneapolis Institute of Art, (612) 870-3171; tpleshek@artsmia.org
Natasha le Bel, Ruder Finn Arts & Communications Counselors, (212) 715-1644; lebeln@ruderfinn.com

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MINNEAPOLIS INSTITUTE OF ARTS CELEBRATES ITS
MAJOR EXPANSION WITH AN EXHIBITION FEATURING
200 OF THE WORLD’S MOST FAMOUS PRINTS

From Dürer to Cassatt: Five Centuries of Master Prints from the Jones Collection,
On View May 20 – September 17, 2006,
Showcases the Museum’s Renowned Print Collection

Minneapolis, MN, April 25, 2006—The Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA) celebrates the opening of its major expansion and renovation on June 11 with a special exhibition of masterworks from its renowned collection of prints and drawings. From Dürer to Cassatt: Five Centuries of Master Prints from the Jones Collection features 200 of the world’s most famous engravings, lithographs, and woodcuts. Opening May 20, this special exhibition is free and on view through September 17, 2006.

From Dürer to Cassatt showcases works by legendary printmakers such as Andrea Mantegna, Albrecht Dürer, Lucas van Leyden, Rembrandt van Rijn, James McNeill Whistler, Mary Cassatt, and Käthe Kollwitz, as well as dozens of rarely seen masterpieces from the fifteenth through the twentieth centuries. From Dürer to Cassatt is one of four exhibitions marking the Grand Opening of the MIA’s expansion and renovation project, which features nearly forty percent new gallery space, thirty-four new galleries and a new wing for twentieth-century art designed by renowned architect Michael Graves.

The works in From Dürer to Cassatt are drawn entirely from the museum’s outstanding collection of prints and drawings, which was one of the first public print collections in the country, predating those at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Art Institute of Chicago. Beginning with the first donations in 1916, the Herschel V. Jones collection has provided the MIA with unparalleled holdings of print masterworks representing the finest artists and techniques spanning a broad chronological and geographical scope.

“This exhibition offers our visitors the opportunity to see some of the finest and most important prints of all time. Their donation has had a transformative influence upon this museum, making ours one of the first—and richest—public collections of graphic art in the United States,” said William Griswold, director and president of the MIA.

Exhibition Details
From Dürer to Cassatt spans five centuries and represents the largest public showing of the Jones Collection. It includes:
A selection of rare 15th-century hand-colored woodcuts and metalcuts
Italian Renaissance masterpieces, including Antonio Pollaiuolo’s Battle of the Nudes and Andrea Mantegna’s Battle of the Sea Gods
Northern Renaissance treasures by Dürer and van Leyden
Etchings by Rembrandt, including an extraordinary impression of Christ Presented to the People, with pen additions by the artist
A selection of 17th- and 18th-century prints by artists such as Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Jacques Callot, Salvator Rosa, and Thomas Gainsborough
Works from the modern era by artists such as Whistler, Cassatt, Charles Meryon, Jean-François Millet, Kollwitz, and Vasily Kandinsky

This strong and varied exhibition includes more than 200 works on view in four galleries throughout the expanded and renovated MIA. The main exhibition is in the U.S. Bank Gallery, and three additional galleries supplement the main exhibition and showcase works that focus on specific themes. They include:

“Monsters and Mayhem: Renaissance Prints from the Jones Collection,” an unusual look at early printmaking themes devoted to real and imagined beasts, fierce battles, bawdy mischief makers, and general bad behavior, is in the Winton Jones Print and Drawing Gallery. It features works by many of the most important artists of the period, including Dürer, Andrea Mantegna, Israhel van Meckenem, and Martin Schongauer.

“The Genius of Rembrandt: Selected Etchings from the Jones Collection” is in Gallery 316 and brings together an assortment of nearly fifty of the master’s landscapes, figure studies, portraits, and religious scenes. This exhibition gives visitors an opportunity to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the birth of this incomparable artist.

“At the Water’s Edge: 19th-Century Prints from the Jones Collection” is featured in Gallery 315. From the canals of Venice to the busy rivers Thames and Seine, from sailing ships to fishing boats, water proved an irresistible subject in the works of Whistler, Francis Seymour Haden, D.Y. Cameron, and many others. This selection of works explores the way water provided powerful inspiration to a variety of gifted nineteenth-century artists.

History of the Herschel V. Jones Collection
Herschel V. Jones (1861–1928) anonymously donated more than 5,300 prints to the MIA in 1916, establishing one of the first public print departments in the country. These prints were from the Ladd Collection, which Jones purchased that same year. The Ladd Collection, formed during a thirty-year period by William M. Ladd of Portland, Oregon, contained woodcuts, engravings, etchings, and lithographs tracing the history of graphic arts. To supplement the Ladd Collection, Jones purchased rare and esoteric works that are virtually unattainable today, such as Dürer’s Saint Jerome in His Study and an extremely rare hand-colored woodcut, c. 1465, by Firabet of Rapperswil. What came to be known as the Herschel V. Jones Collection is, to this day, the heart of the MIA’s prints and drawings collection and still is the largest gift of artwork ever donated to the MIA.

Catalogue
From Dürer to Cassatt is accompanied by an important new catalogue devoted to the history of the Ladd and Jones collections. Titled Herschel V. Jones: The Imprint of a Great Collector and written by Lisa Dickinson Michaux, acting co-curator in the Department of Prints and Drawings, the catalogue serves as a permanent record of the inception of the MIA’s print collection, while also highlighting eighty-five of the museum’s most spectacular prints.

About the Minneapolis Institute of Art
The Minneapolis Institute of Art, home to one of the finest encyclopedic art collections in the country, houses nearly 100,000 works of art representing more than 5,000 years of world history. Highlights of the permanent collection include European masterworks by Rembrandt van Rijn, Nicolas Poussin, and Vincent van Gogh, as well as internationally significant collections of Asian art, decorative arts, Modernism, photographs, and African and Native American art.

General admission is always free. Some special exhibitions have a nominal admission fee. Museum hours: Sunday, 11 a.m–5 p.m.; Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; Thursday, 10 a.m.–9 p.m.; Closed Monday. For additional information, call (612) 870-3131 or visit www.artsmia.org.

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