Treasured Works from the Drawings Vault

The upcoming exhibition Gathered Leaves: Discoveries from the Drawings Vault that will come straight to the Audain Art Museum (AAM) from the National Gallery of Canada’s Department of Prints and Drawings in Ottawa is just such an exhibition. It’s a monumental show that offers viewers the opportunity to experience between 80 and 100 rare and historically significant works of watercolour, pen and ink, graphite and pastel. Many of these pieces have never been publicly exhibited before and have been carefully preserved in darkness for years.

The AAM’s Director and Chief Curator, Dr. Curtis Collins, explained that a drawing — whether a landscape, a portrait, still life, or a figure study — has a vibrant immediacy that pulls the viewer in. “There’s a certain hand of the artist that you can see,” Collins said. “Sometimes it’s just a drawing exercise. Other times they are studies in preparation for a larger work. Sometimes they are works in and of themselves. But all of them share the immediacy.”