While art history has made room for the flurry of movements that emerged in the period following World War II, the myriad artistic developments of the last thirty years have yet to be assigned firm historical categories. Drawing from the Modern, 1975–2005, the final installment in a series of inaugural-year exhibitions produced by the Department of Drawings, attempts to tell a provisional story of the years from 1975 to the present, as reflected through MoMA's singular drawings collection. While making no claims to comprehensiveness, the installation details both the blossoming of different art positions on a broad, international scale in this era, and the coming of age of drawing as an independent—and for many artists, primary—mode of expression.

Organized chronologically and in loose clusters of artists working in the same milieu or vein of interest, the exhibition features works by more than fifty artists, including Bruce Nauman, Gerhard Richter, Martin Kippenberger, Marlene Dumas, Gabriel Orozco, Kara Walker, and Luc Tuymans.