Albrecht Dürer, Self Portrait at age 26, 1498. Museo Nacional del Prado.
The first of our two-morning short course by art historian Clare Ford-Wille will aim to put Dürer’s travels into the context of his career as a whole, and to discuss the importance of the drawings and paintings included in the major exhibition Dürer's Journeys: Travels of a Renaissance Artist at the National Gallery.
Study Morning I - Includes two lectures, Q&A and a coffee break. Tickets £20
Lecture one: Early Career and the First Italian Journey to 1496
Dürer was born in 1471 in Nuremberg and was first apprenticed to his goldsmith father, Albrecht Dürer the Elder, before deciding to pursue a career as an artist with the painter and woodcut designer, Michael Wolgemut in Nuremberg, to whom he was apprenticed in 1486. Sent by his father, after Easter 1490 Dürer travelled for four years, returning to establish himself as an independent master in Nuremberg sometime before July 1497.
Although we do not know where Dürer went during these years, sources claim that he travelled through Germany, perhaps to Frankfurt and Mainz, before by 1492 spending time in Colmar, and almost certainly in the important centre of publishing, Basel. Seven weeks after his return, he married Agnes Frey. There is still considerable debate about whether Dürer left again, shortly after his marriage on a second journey, this time to Venice, a city with which Nuremburg had close trading links.
Coffee break (15 minutes)
Lecture two: Return to Nuremburg 1496-1504 and the Second Italian Journey 1505-6
After Dürer’s return from Italy, his ideas exploded in an extraordinary range of subjects in paintings and in graphic work. His use of the woodcut medium was unprecedented and revealed itself in the ambitious cycle of fifteen folio woodcuts for the Apocalypse in 1498, which brought him international fame. Dürer came to the attention of Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony, as well as leading mercantile families such as the Haller and Paumgartner, who ordered altarpieces.
Dürer continued to paint his own ground-breaking self-portraits, as well as those of important patrons, such as Oswolt Krel. At the time of his second Italian journey, again to Venice, he was a renowned artist and it was there that he painted The Madonna of the Rose Garlands for the German merchants of Venice.
Please note: Tickets to the second study morning are available here: Dürer’s Journeys: Travels of a Renaissance Artist (Week two).
Proceeds from our ticket sales benefit museums, galleries and other arts-based organisations and projects.
This is an online event hosted on Zoom which can be watched live, or on-demand for three weeks afterwards. You will receive your link to access the event in your email confirmation and the on-demand link after the event ends.