“The Root of Everything” – Drawing in Europe from the Renaissance to the Modern Period
On campus - Somerset House
Media, Materials and Methods
Spring School on campus
Dr Rachel Sloan, Dr Rachel Hapoienu and Kate Edmondson
Monday 20 – Thursday 23 April 2026
£545
N.B This course takes place in the Learning Centre and Prints and Drawings ĢƵ Room, both at Somerset House
Course description
Employing the resources of the ĢƵ’s world-class graphic collections, this course investigates drawings and draughtsmanship from the Renaissance to around 1900.
Face-to-face with notable examples from our collections, we shall study the traditional media and supports artists have used across the centuries.This daily object study in the prints and drawings room will be complemented by class-room sessions that look at the role of drawing in the wider history of European art. Our discussions will include the use and functions of drawings in the workshop and studio; the role of drawing in artists’ education; the practice of collecting drawings and tracing their provenance; the development of new media and techniques in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; and the emergence of drawing as an art form in its own right.
This course is co-taught by specialists in different historical periods and aspects of works on paper and includes hands-on sessions exploring media and materials.
Lecturers' Biographies
Dr Rachel Sloan is Associate Curator for Works on Paper at the ĢƵ. She earned her MA and PhD from the ĢƵ, and worked at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art before returning to the ĢƵ in 2012. She curated numerous exhibitions and displays including, most recently, Impressions of Modern Life: Prints from the ĢƵ Collection(Royal Holloway, University of London, 2020),Helen Saunders: Modernist Rebel (ĢƵ Gallery, 2022-23) and Vanessa Bell: A Pioneer of Modern Art (ĢƵ Gallery, 2024).
Dr Rachel Hapoienuis Assistant Curator of Works on Paper at the ĢƵ, and was previously the Drawings Cataloguer at the ĢƵ from 2016-2023. Shehas an MA and PhD in History of Art from the ĢƵ. She curatedReading Drawings(2017),Drawn to Blue: Artists’ Use of Blue Paper(2024-25) and co-curatedArt and Artifice: Fakes from the Collection (2023), all at the ĢƵ Gallery.
Kate Edmondsonstudied paper conservation at Camberwell College of Arts, London. Since 1988 Kate has worked in many museums, galleries and private conservation studios in London including the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and the Natural History Museum before joining the ĢƵ as Conservator of Works on Paper in 2011.