Preparatory studies show an artist’s creative process and serve as valuable documents in the evolution of an eventual work. The museum is fortunate to have in its holdings three preliminary drawings and a more detailed painted composition of David Ligare’s Dido in Resolve. A Neoclassicist painter, Ligare was engaged by the museum in 1988 to create a work that could relate both to its ancient and its modern collections. He selected a scene from Virgil’s epic poem The Aeneid. This year marks the 35th anniversary of the acquisition of Ligare’s Dido in Resolve and its then prominent unveiling and installation at the museum’s former location in Pickard Hall.
Museum goers should plan their visit to include a trip to Ellis Library’s second floor Grand Reading Room where the monumental Dido in Resolve painting is on view.
Thinking on Paper exhibition dates: August 2024 through February 2, 2025.
David Ligare (American, b. 1945), Preparatory Drawing for “Dido in Resolve,” 1988, sepia ink on paper, gift of the Student Fee Capital Improvements Committee, University of Missouri (89.9)
David Ligare (American, b. 1945), Preparatory Study for “Dido in Resolve,” 1988, sepia ink on paper, gift of the Student Fee Capital Improvements Committee, University of Missouri (89.7)