National Gallery Of Art | Audio

March 2013 - Andrew Robison, A.W. Mellon Senior Curator of Prints and Drawings, National Gallery of Art To celebrate the exhibition opening of Albrecht Dürer: Master Drawings, Watercolors, and Prints from the Albertinaon March 24, 2013, Andrew Robison shares that, while the artist's paintings were prized, his most influential works were executed on paper. Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) has long been considered the greatest German artist, uniquely combining the status held in Italian art by Michelangelo in the 16th century, by Raphael in the 18th and 19th centuries, and by Leonardo da Vinci in our own day. The finest collection of Dürer's drawings and watercolors is that of the Albertina in Vienna, Austria. One of the largest in the world, it is distinguished by many of the artist's most stunning masterpieces: watercolors such as The Great Piece of Turf, a sublime nature study of the Renaissance; chiaroscuro drawings such as The Praying Hands, surely the most famous drawing in the world; and the amazingly precocio