Watteau and His World: French Drawing from 1700 to 1750

This comprehensive survey of drawings by Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684–1721) and some of his leading contemporaries included more than sixty-five drawings lent from public and private collections in North America. A core of some thirty-five drawings by Watteau himself demonstated the evolution and range of his graphic art, with examples of all the signficant subjects that he drew and all the genres and graphic media in which he worked. Other sections of the exhibition were devoted to his artistic forebears, to his contemporary followers, and to a group of later artists indebted to the example of his work. Among those represented were Boucher, Gillot, Lancret, Lemoyne, Liotard, Natoire, Oudry, Pater, and Portail. Alan Wintermute selected the works and wrote the accompanying catalogue. The exhibition was organized by the American Federation of Arts.