Michelangelo: the last decades

Accompanying a major exhibition at the British Museum in May 2024, this booklet features spectacular loans from the Vatican Library and the Louvre, placing one of the world's finest collections of Michelangelo drawings within the broader context to the rest of his works.

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) was one of the greatest artists of the Renaissance. He was not the isolated, tortured genius of artistic myth, but a man who maintained a close circle of friends and associates into old age. He developed collaborative working relationships with younger artists, thereby maintaining his fame and reputation even as he aged, relinquishing the hardest physical work to others. His late drawings offer a powerful insight into his psychology, reflecting his Catholic faith, his commanding intellectual engagement, and his hope for eternal life.