Drawn from Nature

- Drawing from Nature.

At a time when our relationship with the world around us seems increasingly fragile, Drawing from Nature invites us to look back in time. In this exhibition, you journey through four centuries of history during which humanity’s relationship with nature has changed dramatically. Are humans subject to forces greater than themselves? Can they dominate nature? Or are they an inseparable part of all life on Earth, and should they therefore listen to what nature has to say? Drawing from Nature explores these questions and invites you to reflect on appropriate and sustainable ways of living together, as well as your own views on living in harmony with your surroundings.

An extensive collection of centuries-old Utrecht landscape drawings from the Munnicks van Cleeff Collection forms the exhibition’s central thread. These are complemented by historical, modern and contemporary works by artists including Charley Toorop, Peter Vos, Anne Geene, Raquel Maulwurf and Piet Mondrian. Also on display are works never shown before, including Niwael’s Portrait of a Girl on Her Deathbed and Ben Sledsens’ Pink Mirage from the Centraal Museum Collection. In the Annex, Richard Mosse’s most recent work, Broken Spectre, is on view in the Netherlands for the first time.

Munnicks van Cleeff

The Munnicks van Cleeff Collection comprises approximately 1,500 landscape drawings and prints from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, around one hundred of which are on display in the exhibition. The collection contains detailed depictions of the province of Utrecht and is a valuable record of the region’s history. Among the works are prints depicting familiar places such as Biltstraat in Utrecht, although they are no longer recognisable: where there were still fields in the seventeenth century, the area is now fully built up.