New York Collects: Drawings and Watercolors, 1900-1950

New York Collects includes 140 drawings by 82 artists from private collections in and around New York. The book provides an overview of drawing on both sides of the Atlantic during the first half of the 20th century and explores the development of the medium during a 50-year period of unprecedented stylistic diversity.

Only superb examples of each artist’s work as a draftsman have been included. In general little-known rather than frequently-published works have been selected, but there are many exceptions, including, for example, Picasso’s celebrated Man with a Pipe and Willem de Kooning’s early Portrait of Elaine.

New York Collects comprises works executed shortly after the turn of the century by Paul Cézanne and Pierre Bonnard, explores the immeasurable contribution of Matisse and Picasso, examines the drawings of the Futurists Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni, and Gino Severini, and includes numerous works by artists associated with Expressionism in Germany and Austria. Surrealism is represented by such pivotal figures as René Magritte, Salvador Dalí, Tanguy, and Miró, while the drawings of Kandinsky and Mondrian trace the development of their distinct brands of abstraction. America’s contribution to early 20th-century draftsmanship is revealed in works by George Bellows, Edward Hopper, John Marin, Marsden Hartley, Charles Demuth, Charles Sheeler, and others. The book concludes with a selection of drawings by John Graham, Gorky, de Kooning, Pollock, and their younger contemporaries.