Museum Studies by David Reuter

It's always fun to go to a Museum and spend time exploring their permanent collection or a gallery exhibit and then to select one work of art to do a study of. That rich tradition of Artists learning to draw by imitating the works of established masters has been alive for centuries. Most Museums even provide chairs for visiting Artist to use while they’re sketching.

I enjoy the challenge to spending a few hours sitting in front of a masterpiece and drawing it while visitors come and go and make comments on my progress.

I hope that you enjoy some of my “Museum Studies”.

David Reuter Musician / Artist

Athlete

I visited The Davis Museum at Wellesley College  and did this Pencil Study of Walt Kuhn’s 1929 painting titled Athlete.

Walt Kuhn was an American Painter born in New York City in 1877. He grew-up in Brooklyn in a working-class family. His artwork and style are immediately recognizable for their originality and his portraits of circus and vaudeville entertainers are some of his most memorable. He destroyed much of his early work and sadly, he was institutionalized in 1948 for the remainder of his life.

Graphite on 11” X 17” 400 Series 60 LB. Strathmore Sketch Paper.

Study by David Reuter

 

The Card Players

At one of my visits to the Worcester Art Museum in Worcester, Massachusetts I did this Pencil Study of one of Paul Cézanne studies for THE CARD PLAYERS. Cézanne did a number of preparatory drawings and studies for his series of much larger oil paintings titled The Cardplayers and many of those studies are regarded as stand-alone works of their own can be seen in museums around the world.

The character in my study is one of the one of the three main characters in the larger painting that’s owned by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, titled The Card Players. For some reason, this character does not appear in other versions of this painting. Cézanne replaced him with other characters and even a large bottle of wine in other versions.

Graphite on 11” X 17” 400 Series 60 LB. Strathmore Sketch Paper.

Study by David Reuter

 

STANDING SPINNER

This is a pencil sketch that I started at The Museum of Fine Art in Boston of Jean-François Millet’s  painting Standing Spinner. While I was working on this sketch, a Security Guard politely asked me to stop drawing because the Museum was very crowded and the painting was located in narrow hallway, so where I was sitting was obstructing the flow of visitors to the museum that evening. It was a “Free Day”, so there were a lot of visitors and the Guard suggested that I come back on a different day to sketch. Maybe someday I’ll go back and finish this drawing but right now, it’s very interesting visually and it has a unique story.

Graphite on 11” X 17” 400 Series 60 LB. Strathmore Sketch Paper.

Study by David Reuter

 

WOMAN WITH A BOUQUET

Here’s a Pencil Study that I did at The Worcester Art Museum in Worcester, Massachusetts of Henri Matisse's painting WOMAN WITH A BOUQUET. I love the freedom and the looseness of Matisse's drawings and paintings and his compositions.

Graphite on 11” X 17” 400 Series 60 LB. Strathmore Sketch Paper.

Study by David Reuter

 
THE BATHERSHere's a pencil sketch I did at The Saint Louis Art Museum of Paul Cézanne’s painting, THE BATHERS. It's always uplifting for me to wander through a museum and find one painting among the hundreds of Masterpieces that suddenly jumps out a…

THE BATHERS

I did this pencil sketch at The Saint Louis Art Museum of Paul Cézanne’s painting, THE BATHERS.

It's always uplifting for me to wander through a museum and find one painting among the hundreds of Masterpieces that suddenly jumps out at you and makes you want to sit in front of for a few hours to sketch it.

Graphite on 11” X 17” 400 Series 60 LB. Strathmore Sketch Paper.

Study by David Reuter

 

The Promenade

This is a Pencil Study that I did at The Worcester Art Museum in Worcester, Massachusetts of Henri Matisse's painting The Promenade. I love the freedom and the looseness of Matisse's drawings and paintings and his compositions.

Graphite on 11” X 17” 400 Series 60 LB. Strathmore Sketch Paper.

Study by David Reuter

 

NUDE

The Worcester Art Museum in Worcester, Massachusetts has a great “Works On Paper” collection and they occasionally display some of their collection at museum shows. I went to an opening there one sonday and saw a Gaston Lachaise drawing on display in one of their galleries. Lachaise was a French-born sculptor who relocated to America in the early 1900’s. His figure drawings are very unique and very modern looking even by today’s standards.

Pen and Ink on 9” X 12” 400 Series 60 LB. Strathmore Sketch Paper.

Drawing by David Reuter

 

An Afternoon At The Show

I went to The Worcester Art Museum in Worcester, Massachusetts to take in their “MASTER DRAWINGS” show and to do a little sketching myself. The Museum has an impressive collection of Works On Paper and it was inspirational to see so many charcoal and pencil drawings and smaller works and studies by major artists. I started the day off by doing this quick pen and ink sketch of the Banner that was hanging in front of the Museum promoting the event.

Pen and Ink on 9” X 12” 400 Series 60 LB. Strathmore Sketch Paper.

Drawing by David Reuter

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