"DEGAS: DRAWINGS AND SKETCHBOOKS" and "ROY LICHTENSTEIN: THE BLACK-AND-WHITE DRAWINGS, 1961-1968" Open at The Morgan Library and Museum

The Morgan Library and Museum main entrance on Madison Avenue

Cover of Fall and Winter Schedule featuring Roy Lichtenstein's "I Know How You Must Feel, Brad" (1963) graphite pencil, pochoir and lithographic rubbing crayon

Two exhibitions opened today at the Pierpont Morgan Library and Museum, "DEGAS: Drawings and Sketckbooks," and "ROY LICHTENSTEIN: The Black-and-White Drawings, 1961-1968." The former features more than twenty drawings by Edgar Degas (1834–1917) from the Morgan's collections that capture the artist's dynamic and varied use of drawing and includes some of the most quintessential subjects - from his earliest portraits of himself, family members, and friends to his later intensive studies of dancers and performers. The Lichtenstein exhibit presents an important series of large-scale, black-and-white works as a group for the first time and examines Lichtenstein's less known exploration of the medium of drawing. Created during the early and mid-1960s, the fifty-five drawings on view offer a revealing window into the development of Lichtenstein's art, as he began for the first time to appropriate commercial illustrations and comic strips as subject matter and experimented stylistically with simulating commercial techniques of reproduction—the famous Benday dots. The work represents an essential and original contribution to Pop Art as well as to the history of drawing. These exhibitions run until January 2011.

The Morgan Library and Museum is located at 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street.