On the evening of Feb. 17, visitors gathered at an “Adventures in Collecting Drawings” reception to celebrate the opening of two new exhibits at Pomona College’s Benton Museum of Art. Titled “500 Years of Italian Drawings” and “Infinity on Paper,” the two vastly different collections put drawing on the map in the world of art curation.
“In [a] museum context, drawings are at once acknowledged as the basis for all artistic expression, architecture, sculpture, painting, printmaking and yet they rarely get featured as the protagonists of art historical narratives,” Victoria Sancho Lobis, director of the Benton, said.
Curated in partnership with the Benton’s AllPaper Seminar fellows, “Infinity on Paper” aims to highlight the enduring relevance of line drawing as an accessible, universal art form.
“Drawings — any sort of drawings — are exciting to see featured so prominently in a museum,” Benton visitor Lela Tilney-Kaemmer SC ’27 said. “I think they can remind us of childhood, of crafting for your own pleasure. There’s a sense of childlike wonder and freedom in a drawing exhibit.”
Enclosed in two adjoining rooms, the exhibit displays works dating from the 16th century to the present day and highlights a wide variety of different styles, forms and approaches to the craft of drawing.
In curating the exhibit, collector Jack Shear intentionally omitted typical museum plaques — none of the artist’s names or curated explanations are attached to the walls of drawings, allowing the eye to wander freely and leaving no room for interpretive labels.
The frames are placed together in a tight but formless lattice, creating an eclectic collage against the backdrop of the gallery’s smooth white walls.
“It’s interesting to have it feel like a collage,” museum patron Anika Yoshida SC ’27 said. “Without the name plaques interrupting, the images flow more freely between each other.”
The juxtaposition of different styles, colors, lines, shades and shapes illustrates the versatility of drawing and encourages viewers to view each piece not as a solitary product, but rather as one brushstroke in a larger picture.
On the west wall of one of the gallery’s smaller enclosed rooms, a simple white canvas stands out in both size and subject.
Andrea Bower’s “#justiceforjanedoe” traces three women standing in protest, together taking up only a small fraction of the large, blank page. Situated in the context of the 2012 Steubenville, Ohio rape case, this intimate hand-drawn portrait utilizes negative space to draw attention to the dark, solitary figures at the bottom.
Captivated by this moving piece, Tilney-Kaemmer expressed gratitude for the Benton as a space for students to find inspiration and connect with art.
“It’s nice to always have the option to do some critical thinking that’s self-motivated and doesn’t take place in a classroom,” Tilney-Kaemmer said.
Across the hallway, the lighting dims and the spaces between the drawings grow as one enters the “500 Years of Italian Drawings” exhibit, also spread throughout multiple rooms. Spanning numerous centuries of Italian art history, the exhibition showcases over 90 rare works of notable artists, including Michelangelo, Parmigianino and Bernini.
On loan from the Princeton University Art Museum, the exhibit is organized along thematic lines with each section showcasing artists’ individual techniques and creative processes.
Visitors can browse the gallery’s catalog to find artist descriptions as well as colorful images of famous paintings adorning the walls of cathedrals and castles across Western Europe. In the context of the artists’ final products, the yellowed pages covered in sketches and grids take on a new life, each an integral piece of the creation process and a critical step in the making of a masterpiece.
Tucked into a back corner of the viewing room, two intricate, pocket-sized sketches done in brown ink sit parallel to each other, framed in salmon washed paper. The striking nature of Parmigianino’s “Two Studies for Figure of Victory” is further illuminated by a glance in the gallery’s catalog, which displays images of the final product of his drawings: the “Saint Vitalis” Fresco.
Located at the church of San Giovanni in Parma, Italy, Parmigianino’s fresco is only one example of how this exhibition’s sketches can be viewed as valuable insight into the creation process of renowned works of art.
The exhibitions “Infinity on Paper” and “500 Years of Italian Drawings” are open from the second week of February through June 23, 2024.
Additionally, the Benton is currently housing “Stitch Field: Alice-Marie Archer’s Agritextiles” and “Continuity: Cahuilla Basket Weavers and their Legacies,” which are also open to visitors throughout the spring semester.
The Benton, located at 120 West Bonita Ave, is open for free admission from 12:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday, as well as Thursday night’s “Art After Hours,” which lasts until 10:00 pm.
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