SALTZMAN/OLD MASTERS; NEW WORLD

The first volume of Great Bird Paintings includes pictures painted in oils or water-colours before 1699. For centuries, Western art was tied to the discipline of the Roman Catholic Church. Symbolic birds appeared in many renaissance religious paintings. Delicate preparatory water-colour sketches were made for these. Artists who wished to paint birds, shrewdly chose scenes of the animals entering Noah's Ark and the Garden of Eden, which gave them the legitimate excuse to introduce birds. By the end of the sixteenth century, the artists had altered the balance and relegated the biblical scene to the background, with the birds claiming full attention in the foreground. In the mid-seventeenth century they were free of clerical demands and in the Golden Age of Dutch and Flemish painting they produced hundreds of very fine canvases full of delightful birds. At long last, they could fully indulge their delight in painting the beauty of colour and form of the birds that gave them so much pleasure.

The Staatliche Graphische Sammlung in Munich houses one of the finest and most famous collections of drawings and prints in Germany, with holdings of around 400,000 works ranging from the fifteenth century to modernity. Published to accompany an exhibition at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York, 100 Master Drawings from Munich comprises lush full-color illustrations of over one hundred of the museum's works of art. Demonstrating the impressive depth and breadth of works owned by the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, the works in this volume range from rough preparatory sketches to meticulously executed studies and encompass a variety of media, including silverpoint, chalk, ink, and aquarelle. Among the many extraordinary pieces are Old Dutch and German prints, nineteenth-century German drawings, and works by Dürer and Rembrandt. But equally not to be missed are the many compelling works of contemporary graphic art for which the museum is best known.

The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, is home to one of the most important collections of historic book art and drawings in the USA. Since renovation and the re-opening of the extension designed by Renzo Piano in Spring of 2006, the institution - created 80 years ago to house the collection belonging to art patron John Pierpont Morgan has played a prominent role in New York's museum world. The Staatliche Graphische Sammlung Munich will be hosting a display of 1 00 masterpieces from five centuries in its exhibition rooms at the Pinakothek der Moderne. This will be the first time that The Morgan Library & Museum presents its collection of drawings of world renown in Germany. Exhibition and catalog are sponsored by Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung and Deutsche Bank Stiftung.