Following the Paper Trail

Every art collection has its mysteries. A sketch by an unknown artist, for example, or a drawing with a tumultuous past—each holds stories waiting to be told, when curators have the time and resources to research them more deeply.

The latter was the case with a pastel recently on view in Gathered Leaves: Discoveries from the Drawings Vault, an exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada (NGC), supported by Getty’s Paper Project initiative. The drawing, drafted in a flurry of colorful strokes, depicts a nude woman gazing directly at the viewer. The composition was striking at the time because it gave the model agency in her naked state. But viewers today might be more surprised by its creator: Edvard Munch.

“Very few visitors to the exhibition recognized it as a Munch until we started to speak about it,” says Kirsten Appleyard, assistant curator of prints and drawings, who worked on the exhibition alongside Sonia Del Re, senior curator of the department. Many people who are familiar with Munch’s most recognized work, The Scream, saw the artist in a new light with Seated Nude’s first public viewing in more than 50 years. “What’s remarkable about it is the frenetic energy with which he applied the pastel,” Appleyard explains. “You can really sense the hand of the artist at work when you’re looking at it.”

With the support of the Paper Project grant, the NGC’s Department of Prints and Drawings was able to confirm the exhibition on the museum’s calendar. This guarantee allowed the curators to allocate more time and resources to delve deeper into the vaults than they could before, to commemorate the department’s 2021 centennial. Since its launch in 2018, Getty’s grant program has provided support for prints and drawings professionals like Del Re and Appleyard to grow their skills, strengthen their networks, and engage new audiences with graphic arts collections through exhibitions, publications, microsites, and workshops.

Gathered Leaves thematically traces the department’s holdings across newly acquired international historical drawings and lesser-known works that have since made their Canadian debut. The exhibition and accompanying award-winning publication reveal new discoveries about the storied collection, which comprises over 27,000 artworks from the 15th to the 20th centuries.

“Working with such a vast collection is wonderful and stimulating, but it also means we’re always moving at a quick pace and don’t have much time for research,” Del Re says. “Without the Paper Project, I don’t think this kind of in-depth exhibition would have been possible. I hope such projects will encourage museums to engage more meaningfully with their own collections rather than prioritize loans and marquee artists.”

Spotlighting a legacy of women artists

Del Re and her team dug through boxes to unearth sheets (referred to in French as feuilles, or “leaves”) that hadn’t been seen for a long time or whose stories hadn’t been researched fully. They also set out to showcase the work of as many women artists as possible. In the end, Gathered Leaves had the largest representation of female artists in the NGC’s history of exhibitions featuring historical art from its collections.

One of those works, Studies of a Reclining Ewe, turned out to be a previously unidentified piece by 19th-century artist Rosa Bonheur. Tucked away in the vault, the drawing originally arrived at the NGC almost by mistake. According to records, it had been “thrown into the lot” when the NGC purchased a work by Eugène Isabey at a London auction in 1937. Del Re had always been curious about it, but she now had a reason to take a closer look at its history.

“It had been neglected in terms of its physical aspect and was in rather rough shape,” she recalls. “It had been folded over and stapled in a past life. The work was mostly untouched physically, but also in terms of research.”

Examination by the NGC’s paper conservators revealed close ties to a sculpture of a ewe by Bonheur. That connection made it easier for them to make a firm attribution to her. This achievement gave more context around the holdings and further insight into Bonheur’s trajectory as one of the first female artists to have a fully international career.

The earliest drawing by a woman in the collection, Charity, by 17th-century Italian artist Elisabetta Sirani, also held secrets waiting to be unearthed. The work had been in the collection since the 1950s, but like Bonheur’s Ewe, it had not been thoroughly studied within the institution. Scholars elsewhere had discovered in recent years that the drawing, which depicts the allegorical figure of Charity holding two infants, was made in preparation for one of seven paintings the famed Medici family commissioned from Sirani.

“These treasures are mostly kept in the vault, so people don’t always know what’s in our collection,” Appleyard says. Works on paper must be regularly rotated off display due to their fragility and sensitivity to light, so it’s not uncommon for many pieces to never make it to an exhibition gallery. “The opportunity to share the stories behind the works and broaden visitors’ understanding of what constitutes a drawing, from graphite on paper to vibrant pastels and large-scale watercolors, was incredible.”

Women who decode

New discoveries like these are plentiful in the publication accompanying the exhibition, which features 103 works from the NGC’s vast collection. Del Re and Appleyard invited their recently retired colleague, Erika Dolphin, to contribute a dozen entries to the catalogue, which yielded some of the most interesting findings within Gathered Leaves.

During her tenure as the NGC’s associate curator of European art, Dolphin acquired two drawings that were attributed to an 18th-century Neapolitan artist. The team knew they were religious studies but weren’t able to identify the exact figures represented. Many of the subjects were accompanied by numbers and corresponding legends, suggesting that the individuals weren’t immediately recognizable to their contemporary audiences either.

Dolphin’s research for the catalogue led her back to her peer Catherine Monbeig Goguel, emeritus director of research in the Louvre’s prints and drawings department. Monbeig Goguel established that the drawings were done by a different hand than the artist to whom they were originally attributed. The true maker was Sicilian painter Antonio Grano and the religious figure featured in both works was finally identified as the patron saint of Palermo, Santa Rosalia.

“With that information in hand, Erika was finally able to piece together the really complex iconography,” Del Re says. One drawing represents the laborious path to finding the relics of Santa Rosalia. The other represents her protecting the city of Palermo from earthquakes and other natural disasters. “I’m glad that not only do we now have a very firm attribution but also know what they were made for and what they represent.”

A collection for all Canadians

The drawing by Munch is just one of many works in the exhibition that were shown to the Canadian public for the first time in decades, having either been previously held in private collections or stored away for years after they were acquired. Among these are a watercolor by Wassily Kandinsky and a figurative pencil sketch by Gustav Klimt.

“These two works were in separate private collections, both brought to Canada by Jewish families escaping around the time of the Second World War, and both were on the verge of leaving the country and being sold at auction,” recounts Appleyard. “We were thrilled we were able to keep these works in Canada, acquiring them in the final moments leading up to Gathered Leaves.”

A rare landscape watercolor by Robert S. Duncanson, one of the first African American visual artists to come to prominence on a world stage, was also put on public display for the first time since its creation in 1864. It was acquired by the NGC just a few months prior and reunited with the only other known watercolor by the artist, acquired by the NGC in 1964 and last exhibited nearly three decades ago. Duncanson created the works while staying in Montreal, where he sought refuge from racial tensions and the Civil War. They are prime examples of how his output helped shape a Canadian landscape tradition.

“This kind of storytelling is what draws visitors in and makes an exhibition more memorable,” Del Re says. “The collection belongs to all Canadians, and it is accessible by appointment in our study room, but it’s so much more enriching to experience it as an exhibition offering a deeper understanding of the world of graphic arts.”