Book dossier

Verso

by James G. Harper

Which side is the verso (the flip side of a drawing)? Who decides? Through history, artists' experimentations have led to their working on both sides of a piece of paper. This is the catalogue of the first exhibition ever devoted entirely to the display of drawings with a front and a back, giving the illusion of three-dimensional objects. (The exhibit of the verso works of 32 artists runs at the Fogg Art Museum, through August 12, 2001). The roster includes Filippino Lippi, Michelangelo, Agostino Carracci, Claude Lorrain, Salvator Rosa, Sir Joshua Reynolds, John Singer Sargent, Pablo Picasso, Fernand Leger, Henry Moore, David Smith and Fred Sandback. The decision about which side to be displayed rarely belonged to the artist although the 20th century saw a shift toward a conceptual self-consciousness by artists who used the verso. This publication explores how the collector, curator or cataloguer often determined which side was to be the front and which the back! The versos convey important information about artistic personalities, creative processes and workshop practices and lead to the exploration of broader concepts like the function of drawing, the use of paper, the changing value of drawings over time.(Harvard University Art Museums).