From the museum website, 21 February 2009
The inaugural exhibition in the Museum’s new Linda and Vincent Buonanno Works on Paper Gallery celebrates the remarkable contributions of Eliza Greene Radeke (1854-1931) and her niece, Helen Metcalf Danforth (1887-1984) to the foundation of the prints and drawings collection. Both served as president of RISD and generously donated to the Museum objects of remarkable quality and breadth. Works in the exhibition comprise the Museum’s best-known and best-loved drawings and prints, spanning the 16th through the early 20th centuries, including Anthony van Dyck’s masterful chalk Study for Malchus (before 1621), Vincent Van Gogh’s stunning reed pen and ink View of Arles (1888), and John Singer Sargent’s luminous watercolor Rio di Santa Maria Formosa, Venice (1905).