Marking the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death, Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, along with 12 other venues across the UK, will display the Renaissance master’s drawings. The exhibition will run from 1st February to 6th May 2019.
With 144 of his greatest drawings from the Royal Collection forming the 12 exhibitions, this will be the widest-ever UK exhibition of Leonardo da Vinci’s works. The drawings will provide an unparalleled insight into Leonardo’s investigations and the workings of his mind.
Leonardo da Vinci: A Life in Drawing in Birmingham, the only Midlands venue, will be displaying twelve drawings never before seen in our city, selected to reflect the full range of Leonardo’s interests – painting, sculpture, architecture, music, anatomy, engineering, cartography, geology and botany. These will include the Head of an Old Bearded Man (c.1517-18), and A Map of the Valdichiana (c.1503-4).
Da Vinci is a world-renowned painter, as well as a respected as a sculptor and architect, but tragically no sculpture or buildings by him survive. His career also spread into the military and in civil engineering. Even more astonishingly, he was an anatomist and dissected 30 human corpses, but his ground-breaking anatomical work was never published. Much of his life’s work was unrealised or destroyed and so Leonardo’s greatest achievements are to be found on remaining sheets of paper.
Leonardo was a firm believer of the importance of visual evidence and thought that it was more persuasive than academic argument, for an image conveyed knowledge more accurately and concisely than any words. Few of his surviving drawings were intended for others to see: drawing served as his laboratory, allowing him to work out his ideas on paper and search for the universal laws that he believed underpinned all of creation.
Accompanying the exhibition will be an engaging education programme which intends to bring Leonardo’s techniques alive for visitors, along with a series of talks and tours.
Gurminder Kenth, Museum Manager at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, said: “We are thrilled to be part of the Leonardo 500th anniversary celebrations showcasing the extraordinary talent and skill of one of the world’s greatest artists.
“When a selection of Leonardo drawings were on display here at the museum in 2012, it was an extremely popular exhibition, with queues forming for the chance to see the works up close. With a different selection of drawings to display in 2019, we are sure visitors will be just as excited about this unique opportunity to see his works on show in the Midlands.”
Martin Clayton, Head of Prints and Drawings, Royal Collection Trust, said, “The drawings of Leonardo da Vinci are a national treasure, both incredibly beautiful and the main source of our knowledge of the artist.
“We hope that as many people as possible across the UK will take this unique opportunity to see these extraordinary works, which allow us to enter one of the greatest minds in history, and to understand the man and his achievements.”
