PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA.- The Frick Art Museum presents "Rubens, Jordaens, Van Dyck, and Their Circle: Flemish Master Drawings from the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen," on view through June 2, 2002. The second exhibition in the Frick’s year-long focus of works on paper features drawings by Peter Paul Rubens, Jacob Jordaens, Anthony Van Dyck, and a group of their contemporaries. A major exhibition of extraordinary drawings by seventeenth-century Flemish masters opens on April 5, 2002 at The Frick Art Museum, Pittsburgh. Rubens, Jordaens, Van Dyck, and Their Circle: Flemish Master Drawings from the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen features 100 drawings by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), Jacob Jordaens (1593-1678), Anthony Van Dyck (1599-1641), and a group of their contemporaries. The exhibition is organized by the American Federation of Arts and the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.

The Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam possesses one of the most outstanding collections of old master drawings in the world. Its particularly rich collection of works by seventeenth-century Flemish masters reflects a period when drawings came to fulfill multiple functions in the creation and production of finished works of art, often becoming highly collectible works in and of themselves. Illustrating the variety of ways that artists used drawings, the exhibition includes examples of preparatory drawings for paintings and prints, copies of earlier works of art, and studies after nature, as well as personal sketches made for the simple pleasure of drawing.



Flemish Master Drawings opens with twenty-nine remarkable drawings by Peter Paul Rubens, one of the most influential northern artists of the Baroque period. His virtuosity, technical mastery and robust power are evident in works such as Portrait of Hélène Fourment (ca. 1631), the magnificent red chalk study, Three Standing Nude Women (ca. 1622-25), and Martyrdom of St. Andrew (ca. 1630s), a study for a large painting produced for the Flemish Hospital in Madrid.



The monumental A Kneeling Man Seen from the Back (ca. 1609-1610), made in preparation for a large painting for the Antwerp City Hall, depicts the figure of a kneeling man that appeared often in Rubens’ work, as well as in drawings by Anthony Van Dyck and Jacob Jordaens. A comparison of the work with Van Dyck’s A Seated Man, Leaning Backwards (ca. 1618) makes apparent the influence of Rubens on the young artist.



Van Dyck was Rubens’ favorite and most successful student, and later made an eminent career for himself as a portrait painter for the English court and aristocracy. With the exception of a drawing of the English village of Rye, the nineteen drawings by Van Dyck included in the exhibition date from 1618 to 1621, during which time he worked as principal assistant to Rubens, and from 1628 to 1632, following his travels in Italy. Van Dyck had a highly developed sense of elegance and refinement that can be seen in works such as The Crucifixion (ca. 1628-30), created as a study for a painting in the main altar of the Chapel of the Holy Cross in Ghent.



After the death of Rubens and Van Dyck, Jacob Jordaens, who had trained in Van Dyck’s studio, became the leading painter in Antwerp. The twenty drawings in the exhibition by Jordaens illustrate his debt to both masters, and showcase his highly successful, lively genre pieces based on Flemish folklore and proverbs. His characteristic red, white and black chalk studies are represented in the exhibition by Bagpiper (ca. 1630s), a study for The King Drinks (ca. 1638), which is also included in the show.



The final section of the exhibition illustrates how other Flemish artists of the seventeenth century—including Adriaen van Stalbempt (1580-1662), Jan Wildens (1586-1653) and Frans Snijders (1579-1657)—were influenced by drawings of the great masters while, at the same time, developing highly specialized styles of their own.



“It is hard to contain our enthusiasm for this year’s series of international loan exhibitions of master drawings,” says Danforth P. Fales, acting executive director of the Frick Art & Historical Center. “Each of them is a marvel and a special opportunity for the Pittsburgh community to see works by Europe’s greatest artists. We opened the year with Masterworks from the Albertina: Renaissance to Rococo with works by Dürer, Michelangelo and Rembrandt. The Flemish Master Drawings exhibition gives us an opportunity to view extraordinary drawings by Rubens, Jordaens and Van Dyck from the collections of the renowned Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. And we look forward to an exhibition of nineteenth and twentieth-century French drawings from the Danish National Gallery later this year.”



Rubens, Jordaens, Van Dyck, and Their Circle: Flemish Master Drawings from the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is accompanied by a fully illustrated, full-color catalogue, featuring essays by A.W.F.M. Meij, chief curator of the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen and organizer of the exhibition, and by noted scholars of Flemish art Hans Vlieghe, R. Baetens, Carl Depaux, Bert Meijer, and Ger Luijten. It will be available for $52 at the Museum Shop at the Frick Art & Historical Center.



The exhibition’s American tour, which opens at The Frick Art Museum, is organized by the American Federation of Arts. Following its presentation at the Frick, the exhibition will travel to the Appleton Museum of Art, Ocala, Florida, and the Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville, Tennessee. Support has been provided by the Government of Flanders. Additional support has been provided by the Eugene V. and Clare E. Thaw Charitable Trust.