Drawing Today

Drawing has become the pre-eminent tool of both experimental and traditional art. The long-term definition of drawing as marks on paper is now seen as too limiting; it can range from the humblest doodle to monumental land lines. It is the medium used by artists as various as the painter John Walker, the land artist Richard Longt, the one-time minimalist Sol Le Witt and the young figure sculptor Antony Gormley. The last 20 years have witnessed the re-emergence of drawing and its importance to artists: the return to the life room sparked off by the preoccupation of R.B. Kitaj; the legacy of abstraction with the rich achievements of artists such as De Kooning, Twombly, Johns, Marden and Penck; the explosion of work that extended the meaning of drawing and the crucial influence of drawing on the new image painters of the 1980's, most notably Clemente, Paladino, Kiefer and Le Brun. "Drawing Today" is complemented by an assortment of attractive colour illustrations.