Albrecht Dürer, Self-portrait (1484). Photo Courtesy: Wikimedia commons
The National Gallery of Art is currently featuring an exhibit of the German artist Albrecht Dürer, widely regarded as the most important artist of the Northern Renaissance. The exhibit, on display through June 9th, features a large number of works on loan from the Albertina Museum in Vienna. Home to the the most renowned Dürer collection in the world, the Albertina’s contributions to this exhibit make it the largest display of Dürer’s artwork to be shown in the US in over forty years.
From the National Gallery of Art website:
“Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) has long been considered the greatest German artist, uniquely combining the status held in Italian art by Michelangelo in the sixteenth century, by Raphael in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and by Leonardo da Vinci in our own day.
While Dürer’s paintings were prized, his most influential works were his drawings, watercolors, engravings, and woodcuts. They were executed with his distinctively northern sense of refined precision and exquisite craftsmanship.”
For further reading on this exhibit, the Washington City Paper and The New York Review of Books both have articles discussing this collection, as well as the historical significance of Dürer’s artwork.