Martyn Gregory will be exhibiting a selection of about 40 watercolours and drawings by 18th, 19th and early 20th century British artists including artworks from two distinguished English private collections that have not been seen on the market for over 30 years. Among these are works by some of the best exponents of early English watercolour including Thomas Girtin, John Varley, and Francis Nicholson. Also featured are works by Thomas Gainsborough, Thomas Rowlandson, David Cox, James Ward, Sir David Wilkie and others. One highlight is a watercolour by Luke Clennell, a rare and beautiful example of work by an artist whose career was curtailed at a young age. Following its well-received 20th century show earlier this year, Martyn Gregory will be also feature a group of modern British watercolours including a drawing by Edward Bawden whose diverse output embraced, painting, design, illustration and printmaking.

Van Doren Waxter gallery is showcasing “Richard Diebenkorn Early Color Abstractions 1949-1955” including several untitled gouache and graphite works by the artist from the early 1950s. Diebenkorn’s early works from the late 40s through the mid 50s are considered among the finest examples of postwar American abstraction. Illuminating Diebenkorn’s formative period, they suggest a fluidity present in his later process, which was marked by shifts into figuration and representational forms, and prefigure the iconic “Ocean Park” paintings. Characterized by gestural, calligraphic lines and lush fields of color, these works reflect the growing momentum of abstraction pushed forward by many artists of the period. Evoking the terrain in which Diebenkorn lived—luminous swaths of ochre and marine tend to dominate—offering a convincing rejoinder to the New York School, and of work by contemporaries like Pollock and de Kooning. Diebenkorn left Sausalito, California in 1949 to pursue his graduate degree in art at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. In 1952 he moved again to Urbana, Illinois to teach and then, in 1952, returned to California where he settled in Berkeley. Each new surrounding provoked a change in the artist’s palette and in the overall rhythm of his compositions.

Jill Newhouse Gallery is offering a select number of drawings and watercolors including Edouard Vuillard’s c1927 pastel on paper “Portrait of Thierry Block,” and Theodore Gericault’s Man with Horse, “Negre Presentant un Cheval,” from 1823. Marianne Elrick-Manley Fine Art will stage an exhibition of drawings titled A Trans-Atlantic-Modernist Joaquin Torres-Garcia and His Contemporaries 1897-1949 which includes 45 works on paper by Torres-Garcia as well as Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Julio Gonzalez, Alexander Calder, Pablo Gargallo, Georges Vantongerloo, and, among others, Jacques Lipchitz. A retrospective of the work of Torres-Garcia is on view through Feb 15 at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Marianne Elrick-Manley’s show includes several drawings from Torres-Garcia’s early period in Barcelona such as “Dama” and an artist book of watercolors that he created during his time in Ville Franche France in 1926. The artist’s two year residence in New York in 1920-22 will be illustrated by a group of important and rare drawings including a page from one of his watercolor New York books. Later works from Paris and Uruguay are also featured.

London dealer Stephen Ongpin says, “I have taken part in every edition of MASTER DRAWINGS NEW YORK, and each year seems to be better than the previous one. I mean this not only in terms of the increasing number of private collectors, museum curators, scholars and lovers of drawings who visit my New York exhibitions each year during the week of MASTER DRAWINGS NEW YORK, but also in the number of sales I have made during that period. There is something special about having the opportunity each year to exhibit and discuss a wide variety of drawings with like-minded people who are equally passionate about the special allure of these often intimate insights into an artist’s creative process. Together with London and Paris, New York has long been one of the centers of the drawings market, and an event like MASTER DRAWINGS NEW YORK – despite the cold weather and often record snowfalls that seem to accompany the week! – only adds to that reputation.”

For the January, 2016 event, Stephen Ongpin plans a show of Italian drawings, “Renaissance to Futurism: Italian Drawings c.1500-1920” comprising about thirty drawings by artists working in Italy, ranging in date from the first years of the 16th century to the beginning of the 20th century, and will showcase drawings by a mixture of well-known artists and minor masters. He says, “Many of the drawings come from private collections, and have not been seen on the market for many years.” Among the earliest Italian drawings in the exhibition is a small but moving pen drawing of the Virgin and Child by Ridolfo Ghirlandaio of c.1500 and an important drawing by Perino del Vaga depicting a scene from the life of Julius Caesar, datable to the 1520’s. 17th century Italian drawings include examples by Ludovico Carracci, Cristofano Allori, Guercino, Salvator Rosa and a double-sided sheet by Carlo Maratta as well as two sheets by Stefano Della Bella. 18th century drawings include two fine sheets by Giandomenico Tiepolo and works by Ubaldo and Gaetano Gandolfi, Pietro Antonio Novelli and Marco Ricci. From the 19th century come drawings by Vincenzo Gemito and Carlo Bossoli, and the final work in the exhibition is an abstract gouache by the Futurist artist Giacomo Balla. The exhibition is accompanied by a scholarly catalogue. The London dealer will also show works by Mary Cassatt, Pablo Picasso, and Julio Gonzalez.