The Historic residency took place over four days in March 2019 in the three most prominent collections of drawings in the UK: British Museum; Royal Collection, Windsor Castle and Courtauld Institute of Art. Each institution welcomed the attention of practising artists, which is dwindling on the whole. Most of the artists had not visited a drawings collection for many years and delighted at the opportunity to look and draw in exquisitely close proximity works from the past by some of the greatest masters of the medium. For each session, the Curator of Drawings selected and introduced works which would allow the artists to consider life drawing through the history and geography of art, the artists’ techniques and aims. To have access to the vast knowledge of the curator in the intimacy of a small cirle is exhilirating. The questioning over, the artists were then given the opportunity to select drawings to ‘copy’ at their leisure. A former male dancer appeared in the afternoon, mounted the library table and proceeded with classical grace to adopt poses resonant of the drawings just imbibed. From intense 15 second drawings to the palpable concentration of a long pose, the only sound was pencil on paper.
