Curator’s Introductory Tour of “Reform to Restoration”

*This tour is now SOLD OUT. To be added to the waitlist, please email acklandRSVP@unc.edu.

A guided tour of Reform to Restoration led by Dana Cowen, Sheldon Peck Curator for European and American Art before 1950. Space is limited; free ticket required.

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
Reform to Restoration: French Drawings from Louis XVI to Louis XVIII (1770-1830) presents over eighty master drawings from The Horvitz Collection, the preeminent private collection of French art in the United States, and showcases some of the most well-known artists of the period, including Jacques-Louis David, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, and Pierre-Paul Prud’hon. Working in a time of tremendous political and social upheaval in France, artists looked to the art, architecture, and literature of ancient Greece and Rome for inspiration and used stories from antique history and mythology as well as current events and contemporary theater to convey moral and civic values during a period of great uncertainty. Arranged in thematic groupings devoted to the concepts of patriotism, love, honor, conflict, and despair, the works on display demonstrate the intellectual curiosity of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century French artists as well as the expressive versatility and powerful immediacy of drawings.

Image credit: Jean-François-Pierre Peyron, French, 1744-1814, Académie: Seated Male Nude, 1780, black chalk on off-white laid paper, 14 3/8 x 20 7/8 in., (36 x 53 cm). The Horvitz Collection, Wilmington. L2023.6.83