Pencil is the most basic of materials for art. Artists have achieved some of their most evocative and powerful works using only pencil. This exhibition highlights pencil drawings from MoMA’s collection by many of the most important artists of the past 100 years. Drawings by Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Kazimir Malevich, Pablo Picasso, Alberto Giacometti, Max Ernst, Cy Twombly, Claes Oldenburg, Ellsworth Kelly, and Jasper Johns are included, along with works by emerging artists. A full range of styles—figuration and abstraction, portraiture and landscape, naturalism and cartoonlike renderings—is represented.
If you are interested in finding out which works from the collection are on view in Pencil, a checklist is available.
Organized by Gary Garrels, Chief Curator, Department of Drawings, and Curator, Department of Painting and Sculpture.