Albrecht DRers Material World

(Paperback)

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The painter and printmaker Albrecht Drer is one of the most important figures of the German Renaissance. This book accompanies the first major exhibition of the Whitworth Art Gallerys outstanding Drer collection in over half a century. It offers a new perspective on Drer as an intense observer of the worlds of manufacture, design and trade that fill his graphic art.

Artworks and artefacts examined here expose understudied aspects of Drers art and practice, including his attentive examination of objects of daily domestic use, his involvement in economies of local manufacture and exchange, the microarchitectures of local craft and, finally, his attention to cultures of natural and philosophical inquiry and learning. In a series of essays and shorter texts, leading scholars offer insight into how a changing Renaissance material world, shaped by expanding European and global networks, helped spark artistic creativity and major innovations in the production of art and craft in Drers native Nuremberg and beyond.

This catalogue also includes an in-depth study of the Whitworths recently restored piet sculpture and brings a new perspective to the history of collecting Drers art in the northwest of England and to the role that local collectors many themselves involved in trade, industry and design played in amassing one of the countrys most significant holdings of this Renaissance artists graphic work.

Author Bio

Edward H. Wouk is Reader in Art History and Cultural Practices at the University of Manchester
Jennifer Spinks is Hansen Associate Professor in History at the University of Melbourne