Color into Line: Pastels from the Renaissance to the Present

Odilon Redon, detail from Orpheus, ca. 1905, Fine Art Museums of San Francisco, Bequest of Frederick J. Hellman.

Through eighty masterworks, Color into Line traces the technical evolution of pastel, from its introduction in 16th-century Europe to works created as recently as 2020. Highlighting the creative process behind the works, the exhibition emphasizes pastel’s versatility over five centuries of human creativity, through drawings by Rosalba Carriera, Jean-Baptiste Perronneau, Edgar Degas, Mary Cassatt, Eva Gonzalès, Diego Rivera, Wayne Thiebaud, Richard Diebenkorn, John Altoon, Rupert García, and Joan Mitchell. According to the museum’s Director and CEO, Thomas P. Campbell,“Drawing heavily on the riches of our Achenbach Collection for Graphic Arts, the exhibition brings fresh light and scholarship to a medium that is often overlooked because such works are so fragile and rarely lent and displayed.”