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Zoom + Bruce Nauman
(American, born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, 1941)
Untitled (Study for Diamond Mind II), 1975
Graphite on paper
30 5/8 x 39 7/8 inches (778 x 1013 mm)
Inscription: Diamond Mind/Circle of Tears/Fallen All Around me/Fallen Mind/Mindless Tears/Cut like a Diamond/Layout -/12 pc. stone 7 1/2º Rhomboids/Granite 15" on a side.
Gift of the Modern and Contemporary Collectors' Committee, 2008. Acc. no. 2008.10

Courtesy Sperone Westwater, New York.
© 2008 Bruce Nauman / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

One of the most influential American artists of the post-minimalist generation, which gained prominence in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Nauman produced sculpture, performance, video, photography, and film. A superb draftsman, he created a large body of drawings that reveal the creative process behind his works in other mediums. Untitled (Study for Diamond Mind II) is a preliminary drawing for a sculpture composed of twelve rhomboid blocks distributed in concentric circles, now in the collection of the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, The Netherlands. In the drawing, Nauman worked out the placement of the blocks. Arrows, corrections, and erasures show the artist thinking his way through the particular space of the installation. Inscriptions on the sheet include not only practical instructions and dimensions, but also a poetic text, which recalls Nauman's interest in language and play on words.

Zoom + Alexander Ross
(American, born in Denver, Colorado, 1960)
Untitled, 2007
Colored pencil on paper
30 1/4 x 22 3/4 inches (768 x 578 mm)
Purchased as the gift of Whitney B. Armstrong and on the Young Associates Fund for Twentieth-Century Acquisitions. Acc. no. 2008.40

Photography by Kevin Noble, courtesy of David Nolan Gallery, NY.

Alexander Ross established his reputation in the 1990s with paintings and drawings of fanciful images derived from microscopic visions of cellular organisms, merging references to Surrealism, Philip Guston, and science fiction. In this recent drawing, the artist's close observation of nature generates an imaginary landscape made of strange, interlocking forms delicately rendered with colored pencils. Combining volume and flatness, nature and artifice, abstraction and representation, Ross proposes a contemporary vision of nature at once playful and disquieting. This is the first work by this artist to enter the Morgan, where it joins a small but growing collection of twenty-first century drawings.

Jean-Baptiste-Marie Pierre

Zoom+ Jean-Baptiste-Marie Pierre French, Paris 1714–1789 Paris Le Misanthrope Pen and black ink, brush and gray wash, over black chalk, heightened with white gouache, on blue paper 8 3/4 x 11 inches (220 x 280 mm) Purchased as the gift of Joan Taub Ades and on the Lois and Walter C. Baker Fund, acc. no. 2006.5

A prolific painter of history, religious, and genre scenes, Pierre assumed the mantle of premier peintre du roi in 1770, following Boucher's death. He was named director of the Académie Royale the same year. Throughout his career Pierre enjoyed the support of royal and noble patrons and continued the elegant tradition fostered by his mentor, Charles-Joseph Natoire.

This highly finished drawing illustrates a scene from one of Molière's most famous comedies, Le Misanthrope, which was first performed in the theater of the Palais Royal on 4 June 1666. The play is set in fashionable seventeenth-century Paris. Alceste, the title character, is disgusted by humanity's hypocrisy, injustice, and corruption. Nonetheless, he is in love with Célimène, a flirtatious young widow, who surrounds herself with suitors and exemplifies the insincerity that Alceste despises in others. The drawing depicts Alceste with Célimène; her two suitors, Clitandre and Acaste; Alceste's friend Philinte; and Célimène's cousin Éliante. The inscription Non morbleu!, c'est a vous; et vos ris complaisans tirent de son esprit tous ces trais medisants [sic], which may be translated, "No, gadzooks! It concerns you; for your assenting laughs draw from her wit all these slanderous remarks" is a line from act 2, scene 4, directed by Alceste to the suitors in response to Clitandre's comment. Clitandre had remarked that if Alceste was offended by what had been said, he should address his reproaches to Célimène and not to them.

This sheet, which has been dated to about 1750–55, is one of three known drawings by Pierre illustrating Molière's works; the other two represent scenes from Le Sicilien and Georges Dandin. The British Museum, London, has a fourth highly finished illustration of a theatrical scene by Pierre (inv. no. 1938-5-17-2), which depicts a scene from Paul Scarron's (1610–60) Don Japhet d'Arménie, first published in 1653. Pierre's inspiration for these theater drawings likely was the series of illustrations for the six-volume edition of Molière's plays published in Paris in 1734 with engravings after designs by Boucher. The fluid and spirited touch of the present drawing makes it a superb example of Pierre's draftsmanship.