Resource - Famous Artists' Sketchbooks and sketch collections - online!

[pinkrybns]

In this thread you will find resources online where you can view the sketchbooks, or sketches, of famous artists throughout history.

The initial concept for this thread was inspired by WC! member Katherine T, herself an avid sketcher.
Thanks for the idea and for so neatly collating the research, Katherine.

To anyone who finds new resources online, please feel free to add links to sites where any "famous" artists' sketches or sketchbooks can be viewed - make sure to include the artist's name and a brief discription.

• Rembrandt van Rijn (Dutch 1606-1669)
  Link: Good example of Rembrandt’s sketches and drawings can be found in
  • the British Museum and
  • Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
  • Getty Museum – sketch of an artist in his studio

• JMW Turner (English 1775-1851) produced 300 sketchbooks and around 30,000 sketches and watercolours on his travels.
  • Five years after his death, the majority of his art was bequeathed to the nation and is housed at Tate Britain
    Turner Setchbooks (1780s to 1840s), Turner Bequest, Tate Britain
  • Turner sketch of Stonehenge,Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,

• John Constable (English 1776 - 1837) believed in the importance of working from life and based his paintings on drawings of the landscape.
  • The current exhibition of his landscapes at Tate Britain focuses on the relationship between his sketching and the production of six foot canvases.
  • Sketchbook at the Victoria and Albert Museum
  • Oil sketches at the Victoria and Albert Museum

• Conrad Martens (English 1801 - 1878) – who accompanied Darwin on the Beagle as expedition artist and produced three detailed sketchbooks of places visited and objects seen on the expedition.
  • this is the story of his sketchbooks from the Beagle expedition which are in the Cambridge University Library
  • this is the itinerary of the expedition)
  • these are some of the sketchbook images. Most are in graphite. Click on an image to see a larger image and more detail about it.

• Cezanne (French 1839 - 1906) is often called ‘Father of Modern Art’. He worked from life and made detailed observations of form in his drawings and sketches as well as his paintings.
  • Pencil and watercolour drawings (from life)
  • Pencil sketches

• Vincent Van Gogh (Dutch 1853 - 1890) made preliminary drawings (sketches) prior to developing his paintings. He often drew with a reed pen and ink. He probably has one of the most interesting range of marks – which some say were notations for the colours he saw.
  • Examples from the 2005 exhibition of Van Gogh Drawings at the Metropolitan Museum, New York
  • link to van Gogh drawings on line:www.vggallery.com/drawings/main_az.htm

• John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925) – examples of sketches from
  • an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and
  • the collection at Harvard

• Various American Artists: Smithsonian Museum – Sketchbooks in the Archives of American Art
  (Click on the name of an artist, in the menu on the left side of your screen, to see the sketchbook(s)

• Henry Moore (English 1898 - 1986)
  • early drawings (1916-1939) of ideas / for sculptures

• David Hockney (English 1937 – present day)
  • sketches

To add your link, just post a new reply.

Thank you!


WC! Art History Moderators

[Katherine T]

Note:
On a few of them it's now more apparent that you need to submit a search to get the result - as follows:

• Singer Sargent - Harvard collection: search for sketchbook and you will get 20 pages. Ignore the first couple which for some reason have a lot of images missing - after that it gets really good!
• Cezanne - you need to do a search under technique to access
  • the graphite drawings and
  • the pencil and watercolour drawings

[mothsailor]

Note:
The Rembrandt section from MFA Boston includes some drawings by other artists with "Rembrandt" in their name!

[voltman]

can not get in Harvard collection - Singer Sargent

link to van Gogh drawings on line: http://www.vggallery.com/drawings/main_az.htm

great thread, keep em comming
greetings,

[pinkrybns]

Originally Posted by voltman

can not get in Harvard collection - Singer Sargent

Hi voltman,
I was able to get to the Harvard, Singer Sargent collection , but you have to type in a search word to go further, (i.e., Venice, drawing, Italy ..)

Try Katherine's suggestions here - it works.

Singer Sargent - Harvard collection: search for sketchbook and you will get 20 pages. Ignore the first couple which for some reason have a lot of images missing - after that it gets really good!

And thank you for including the link to the van Gogh drawings (I forgot that one...oops, foutje!) I've added the link to the main list.


Judy

[voltman]

great collection, thanks
vriendelijke groeten,

[Calamity]

Hey all,

Katherine's link to Harvard's Singer-Sargent works was giving an error message, so I'm just going to post a quick link to their online collections for any wanting to do a little research.



Take care.

ps. For some reason the link only shows when I try to edit the post to find out why the link isn't showing in the thread.... hopefully it sorts it self out. If not, just copy and paste this in the appropriate place (no pun intended) :
http://www.artmuseums.harvard.edu/co...=bassearchform

[pinkrybns]

Originally Posted by Calamity

Hey all,

Katherine's link to Harvard's Singer-Sargent works was giving an error message, so I'm just going to post a quick link to their online collections for any wanting to do a little research.



Take care.

ps. For some reason the link only shows when I try to edit the post to find out why the link isn't showing in the thread.... hopefully it sorts it self out. If not, just copy and paste this in the appropriate place (no pun intended) :
http://www.artmuseums.harvard.edu/co...=bassearchform

It is possible that their (Harvard's) servers are down. The original link always worked for me and did when, 4 weeks ago, I answered voltman. These things happen, nothing we can do about it except wait until the problematic servers at Harvard are up again.

[pinkrybns]

And as timely luck would have it, the Sargent link is working again...at least for me it is.
Sargent at Harvard - main page (This is the link, under Sargent, that is in post #1 of this thread).
Try a search on words, such as Venice or Italy, and you'll get some sketches amongst the watercolors.

[Chris_Stretten]

I just stumbled across this thread... I remember an online copy of Da Vinci's notebooks, reproduced/written in 1883 by Jean Paul Richter.
hmmm...
For what it's worth:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/aor/dv/index.htm

The "Plates" are the sketches. (some are decent resolution, and some are "okay".) The other pages are the translated text of his notes and theories (into english).
Hope this is correct for this forum

Cheers,
Chris

[mothsailor]

Thanks Chris, very nice link.

[ANGHWAR]

Da Vinci's sketchbooks downloadable - Richters translation - no copyright.

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5000

[BonArt]

What a great idea!! I will make time to check out these sites. Thank you, Bonnie

[voltman]

a great sketch collection is to be found in the Joconde database of French art.
the search engine is a little hard to handle but it is a fine one.

here are drawings by Henri Regnault: http://www.culture.gouv.fr/public/mi...GNAULT%20HENRI

[voltman]

select domaine and fill in dessin and an author., for example Bougeaureu in domaine: 'dessin' http://www.culture.gouv.fr/public/mi...PWD=4%24%2534P


also select "avec image"