Art spotlight: Durer prints at Gustavus

By MARY ABBE, Star Tribune

September 11, 2011 at 4:56AM
Albrecht Durer's "Promenade (Young Couple Threatened by Death)," 1498
Albrecht Durer's "Promenade (Young Couple Threatened by Death)," 1498 (Margaret Andrews/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Opening Monday: In the past decade, retired Connecticut businesswoman Elizabeth Maxwell- Garner has become an expert on the wood engravings of Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), a Renaissance master famous for his dramatic images of Christian legends. She has assembled a collection of more than 50 Dürer prints that will be featured at Gustavus Adolphus College's Hillstrom Museum of Art. Among the prints is "Promenade (Young Couple Threatened by Death)," shown here, in which Maxwell-Garner has discovered a fascinating detail. A minuscule Latin word in the woman's neckline led her to identify the woman as the mother of one of Dürer's scholarly friends. In a lecture and a gallery talk next month, she will discuss that and other fresh insights suggesting previously unknown relationships among Dürer's prints, which, she believes, often allude to the artist's friends and to events in his life and times.

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MARY ABBE, Star Tribune