Out of the Shadows

For much of its history, charcoal was a material artists chose for preparing larger, more permanent works of art, such as paintings and sculptures. A powdery material made from burnt vines, charcoal is ephemeral by nature, offering artists a means to work quickly to explore the tones, textures, and loose forms of a new composition. In nineteenth-century France new possibilities for the medium emerged with the development of fixative, a sticky substance that could be sprayed on a drawing to permanently “fix” charcoal to the page. Spurred by this development and the manufacture of new types of fabricated chalks and crayons, artists reached new expressive heights in drawing.

"‌Out of the Shadows: Charcoal Drawings, 1850–1910" considers the inspiration artists drew from their dark materials and follows their exploration of blackness in all its imaginative and narrative dimensions.‌‌‍‌‍‌ The works on view show charcoal, chalk, and crayon at their fullest potential, giving artists a means for setting to paper the shadowy world of their perception.