Gallery Talk: Drawing Light in Sketch, Shade, Smudge: Drawing from Gray to Black

Name: Gallery Talk: Drawing Light in Sketch, Shade, Smudge: Drawing from Gray to Black
Start: 2025-12-18T12:30:00-05:00
End: 2025-12-18T13:00:00-05:00
Location: Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA, 02138

Schedule

Thu Dec 18 2025 at 12:30 pm to 01:00 pm

UTC-05:00

Location

Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy Street, Cambridge, MA, 02138 | Cambridge, MA

The exhibition Sketch, Shade, Smudge: Drawing from Gray to Black highlights a wide selection of works created primarily with dark media like charcoal, chalk, and graphite. Join curatorial assistant and practicing artist Meghan Grady for a discussion that will focus on the different techniques used by artists to depict light when working with a variety of dark media. Visitors are welcome to bring their own sketchbook and draw as we talk. Please note that pencils are the only utensils allowed to be used in the galleries.
Sketch, Shade, Smudge: Drawing from Gray to Black celebrates the act of drawing using familiar tools—charcoal, chalk, crayon, and graphite. Each type of material has distinctive properties: charcoal can be intensely rich and velvety, or delicately gray and suggestive, while graphite is slippery, shiny, and easy to erase. Crayon is deeply black and waxy, whereas chalk can be crumbly and diffuse. The creative manipulations of these media—smudging, scraping, and erasing—make them versatile tools for adding intensity, depth, precision, and expression to an artist’s vision.
Led by:
Meghan Grady, Curatorial Assistant for Special Exhibitions and Publications, Division of European and American Art
Please check in with museum staff at the Visitor Services desk in the Calderwood Courtyard to request to join the gallery talk. Space is limited, and talks are available on a first-come, first-served basis; no registration is required.