Dürer to Matisse: 400 Years of European Prints displays nearly 100 prints by some of the most recognized artists active from the late fifteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. While this exhibition emphasizes high quality and excellent condition, rather than presenting a comprehensive history of the medium, the prints on view do chart the progression of art historical movements from the Renaissance to Cubism and beyond, through woodcuts, engravings, etchings, aquatints, mezzotints, and lithographs. Some works are newly acquired and never before displayed at the Ackland, and others have been off view for decades.
The Ackland Art Museum holds North Carolina’s largest and most comprehensive collections of art on paper. Artists represented in this exhibition include Dürer, van Meckenem, Mantegna, Raimondi, de’Barbari, Van Leyden, Robetta, Campagnola, Hirschvogel, de Juste, Fantuzzi, Gaultier, Barocci, Cock, after Bruegel I, Goltzius, Sadeler, Bolswert, Callot, Van de Passe, Lorrain, Rembrandt, Pauwels the Elder, Visscher, Rosa, Testa, Frye, Hogarth, Aveline, Canaletto, Piranesi, Le Prince, Green, Sandby, Fragonard, Rowlandson, Goya, Pillement, Kolbe the elder, Roger, Géricault, Blake, Daumier, Bresdin, Corot, Manet, Degas, Pissarro, Cassatt, van Gogh, Cézanne, Toulouse-Lautrec, Toorop, Klinger, Modersohn-Becker, Kollwitz, Munch, Schmidt-Rotluff, Beckmann, Dix, Matisse, Rouault, Chagall, Dalí, Braque, and Picasso.
Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669), The Triumph of Mordecai , ca. 1641, Ackland Art Museum, United States
This presentation of Dürer to Matisse builds on a project developed for the Ackland Exchange Initiative, in which 36 European prints were lent to Fayetteville State University and Elizabeth City State University during the fall of 2023. Both exhibitions were organized by Dana Cowen, Sheldon Peck Curator for European and American Art before 1950.