Unique and fragile objects, old master drawings are kept in storage, their access limited to knowing scholars, other artists, and dedicated collectors. Now, through the sponsorship of the Midwest Art History Society and the commendable efforts of Burton Dunbar and Edward Olszewski, the drawings will be readily accessible to everyone. This first volume of Drawings in Midwestern Collections offers a full listing of old master drawings from collections throughout the Midwest. Thoroughly researched, this important reference book introduces a corpus of the rarest of European drawings through the year 1500, a time when artists had just begun to value drawings as works of art, and from which only a limited number of drawings have survived.

Each of the thirty entries in this volume is written by a scholar who has immediate access to the artwork itself and who is a specialist in the art of that period. In addition to basic information about the work, the authors have commented on each drawing's artistic significance and on problems surrounding it. Included also are reproductions of the drawings as well as numerous illustrations of comparable works from other American and European collections.

Drawings in Midwestern Collections presents previously unpublished technical information on many of the drawings, argues for the new attribution of several of them, provides an up-to- date summary of scholarship on each work, and, taken as a whole, provides insight into the diversity of the holdings of midwestern museums. The first in a series of books that will include all drawings in more than seventy midwestern collections, Drawings in Midwestern Collections: Volume I, Early Works is certain to enrich the lives of students, scholars, museum personnel, and the general public.

About the Editors

Burton L. Dunbar is Professor of Art History at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.