The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum

The Drawn Page

Each week a different specially commissioned work on paper will be reproduced on one full page in black and white on a 1:1 scale. The artists invited to participate represents a cross-section of the stylistic range of contemporary drawing, including realism, abstraction, text, digital, and process-based work.

In today's world, visual art is, in most cases, segregated into specialty publications that are geared towards a target audience of those already engaged with art and the art world. The Drawn Page is an experiment where both the Museum and participating artists will be injecting art into a forum that is usually reserved for local news and advertising.

When the modern newspaper was born in the early 19th century, prior to the rise of photolithography, printed images were hand-rendered. Artists such as Thomas Nast and Winslow Homer provided drawings that were independent works of art that did not necessarily reference news stories. Currently, drawings in newspapers are relegated to either the Op Ed page or the Comics section. The Drawn Page will provide a new opportunity to connect artist and viewer, stimulating a greater awareness of the possibilities of contemporary drawing,

Participating artists include Joe Amrhein, Astrid Bowlby, Dawn Clements, Marsha Cottrell, Amy Cutler, James Esber, Eva Lee, Sol LeWitt, Frank Magnotta, Robin Lowe, and Melanie Vote.

An exhibition of the original drawings along with their newsprint reproductions will be mounted in the late spring of 2004 in The Aldrich's new galleries. The exhibition will run through August 29, 2004.

Curated by Jessica Hough, Richard Klein and Harry Philbrick