"I should recommend . . . keeping . . . a small
memorandum-book in the breast-pocket, with its
well-cut sheathed pencil, ready for notes on passing
opportunities: but never being without this."
John Ruskin, The Elements of Drawing, 1857

Artists have used sketchbooks for centuries, entrusting travel sketches, figure studies, compositional ideas, and notes of every kind to their pages. Designed to be easily portable, sketchbooks are often kept in a pocket, and offer an unusually personal glimpse of the artist at work. Leafing through sketchbooks can result in a disconcerting sense of having invaded the artist's privacy, as if one were reading a diary or looking over a shoulder. In addition to drawings, notes and addresses, doodles and train schedules, sketchbooks can bear the familiar curve of the artist's body, the mark of his or her hand. While sketchbooks are often small, some are capacious, allowing broad, expansive sketching.

The Fogg Art Museum owns an unusually large collection of about 150 sketchbooks, ranging in date from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. Several artists are especially well represented: there are thirty-four examples by John Singer Sargent, twelve by the Hudson River school artist Sanford Gifford, and forty by the sculptor Christopher Wilmarth. Some of the sketchbooks contain finished, self-conscious studies that are signed by the artist, while others include rapidly scribbled notes and near illegible sketches. Some were executed over the course of several days or years; others were revisited years later.

Outside of the artist's possession, intact sketchbooks are rare. The demands of the market often lead to their being dismantled and the pages sold individually. Sketchbooks may also gradually diminish in thickness as leaves are extracted as keepsakes or for closer inspection. Pages may loosen or separate from damaged bindings.

This Web site was mounted to accompany the exhibition Under Cover: Artists' Sketchbooks (August 1 – October 22, 2006), and focuses on ten sketchbooks. Every page is reproduced—front and back (recto and verso)—and can be seen all together or sequentially.

Click here to listen to an audio clip by Miriam Stewart, curator of the exhibition.