Andrea del Sarto: The Renaissance Workshop in Action

Andrea d’Agnolo (1486–1530), called Andrea del Sarto after his father’s profession as a tailor (sarto), transformed sixteenth-century Florence through his art and that of the artists he trained. Through his large and prolific workshop, one of the most significant of the age, he enriched his native city with portraits, altarpieces, and fresco paintings. Drawings were at the core of his creative process. Produced primarily in red and black chalks, his vibrant figure studies, energetic compositional drawings, and masterful head studies display the range of his talents as a draftsman and the complex roles that drawing played in developing his paintings. This autumn, The Frick Collection celebrates the Italian master with Andrea del Sarto: The Renaissance Workshop in Action, the first major U.S. monographic exhibition devoted to his art, centering on his working process and the complex role that drawing played in it. This exhibition was organized with the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, where it has run as a summer show. In New York, the presentation will feature forty-five drawings and three paintings from international collections and will offer an unprecedented look inside the creative production of one of the most influential figures in Italian Renaissance art. To be shown in the Oval Room and in the lower-level galleries, the exhibition was coordinated at the Frick by Associate Curator Aimee Ng and is accompanied by a substantial catalogue as well as a series of public programs. Principal funding for the exhibition in New York is generously provided by Gilbert and Ildiko Butler. Major local funding is also provided by the Robert H. Smith Family Foundation, The Christian Humann Foundation, and Andrea Woodner, with additional funding from Helen-Mae and Seymour Askin, Diane Allen Nixon, Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Victor Thaw, David and Julie Tobey, the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, Jon and Barbara Landau, and Margot and Jerry Bogert.