Old-master exhibitions are typically scarce commodities in this region, but, suddenly, two such offerings are running concurrently, and, even better, they nicely complement each other.
“Cities of Splendor: A Journey Through Renaissance Italy,” a striking, sometimes surprising survey of the Denver Art Museum’s holdings from this especially fertile time in art history, opened in April and runs through July 31.
While it focuses primarily on paintings, a soon-to-close show at the Colorado State University Art Museum in Fort Collins puts the spotlight on drawings, giving visitors to both exhibitions a chance to compare artists’ approaches to the two forms.
What makes drawings so appealing is that they offer a direct, unfiltered link to the artist’s hand and possess an immediacy and honesty that can sometimes become lost in the meticulous, finished perfection of a painting.
Exemplifying these qualities is one of the show’s standouts, a small, two-sided drawing by Agostino Carracci (1557-1602), who was part of a well-known family of baroque artists that included his more famous younger brother, Annibale.
With graceful, vibrant lines, Carracci created an ink portrait of a girl on one side and an old man on the other, both simply and tellingly conveying a sense of the two very different sitters.
The piece is one of 55 drawings on loan from Torleif Tandstad and Larry Hartford, longtime Los Angeles art appraisers who retired and moved to Fort Collins in 1996.
The two collectors purchased nearly all the works in London in 1969-1975, when old-master drawings were still plentiful and reasonably priced because the art market largely ignored them.
“At that time, pretty much every year we would make a trek to Europe and stop in London, which was always one of our favorite spots,” Tandstad said. “A good friend of ours moved to London, and she was interested in old-master drawings, and she showed us around a little bit.”
Though the ensemble of drawings cannot compete with top-level museum holdings, the quality is consistently high, with examples by notable artists like Federico Barocci, Baron Antoine Jean Gros, Ernest Meissonier, Anthony van Dyck and Benjamin West.
Not only did Hartford and Tandstad clearly have good eyes, they wisely sought help, drawing on the expertise of, among others, the then-keeper of prints and drawings at the British Museum.
This group of drawings includes a strong contingent from the Italian Renaissance (though none of the artists overlaps with those in the Denver Art Museum’s exhibition) and extends through the 19th century, incorporating pieces from France, Holland, Germany and England.
Though the gallery containing these pieces seems crowded by today’s standards, they are displayed salon-style as they might have been several centuries ago in a villa or manor house.
Aside from the general level of quality and shared time periods, there is little in terms of subjects, styles or approaches that tie these selections together.
“That is very true,” Tandstad said. “We bought what we liked.”
Most of these works were created as preparatory studies and sketches, and were never meant to be shown. A good example is a sketchbook page by Carlo Maratta (1625-1713) that includes chalk studies of Diana the Huntress from three points of view and several angles on dogs.
But others were clearly meant to be finished display pieces. Examples include James Stephanoff’s opulent, Bacchanalian watercolor, “The Lady in Comus” (1837), and Charles Albert Waltner’s expressive portrait of an artist friend’s son from 1880.
In what could be a significant boon to the CSU museum, the two collectors are in negotiations with the school about donating their holdings, which also include old-master paintings and sculpture.
“Nothing has been decided yet,” Tandstad said, “but I know they are very interested in obtaining the collection. Of course, they would have to build a structure to house it, and they would have to raise money to do that.”
Kyle MacMillan: 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com
“SURE OF HAND: DRAWINGS FROM THE RENAISSANCE TO THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.”
Art. Colorado State University Art Museum, University Center for the Arts, 1400 Remington St., Fort Collins. On view are 55 old-master drawings on loan from the collection of Torleif Tandstad and Larry Hartford of Fort Collins. Through June 12. 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays. Free. 970-491-1989 or
