Wolf Huber

di Paul Jeromack 

“But Paul… that was in the LAST Johnson Gallery rotation!” I know, I know… but I still couldn’t resist giving this magnificent drawing by Wolf Huber (1485-1553) another show. Boldly executed in black-and-white chalk on brick-red paper (and that’s the actual vivid color) and initialed and dated 1522, it is supposedly a study for the head of a centurion in the artists “Raising of the Cross” (he’s directly to the left of Christ’s feet) of c. 1525, (Kunsthistoriches Museum, Vienna) but I’m not totally convinced. One of the Met’s greatest yet least-known German drawings.