Work in Progress: The Art of Making Paintings

Between the Renaissance and the modern period, the process of making paintings in Europe involved extensive training, strictly regulated systems of production and significant time and effort, all of which may not be evident in the appearance of the completed works. This exhibition seeks to make artistic labor more tangible by highlighting works of art that reveal the methods of their creation. From preparatory drawings and painted oil studies to abandoned compositions and reused canvases, the objects on display offer access to creative process, while providing insights into working methods that persisted for centuries. Anchoring the exhibition are three to-scale preparatory cartoons for a mural at the Panthéon in Paris, made by the 19th-century French artist Pierre Puvis de Chavannes. These shed light on the dynamics of developing and laying out a design of this magnitude, a process that involved painstaking preparation as well as in-the-moment adaptations to produce the monumental composition. Featuring unfinished paintings, studies and sketches by artists such as Degas, Kandinsky, Romanelli and Van Gogh, many of which are rarely on view, Work in Progress shows art-making to be an iterative and ever-evolving act, one that is not always perceptible in the finished product.