Dürer's Seven Sorrows panel reunited with Elsner drawings in Dresden cabinet show

The Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden presents "In the Face of Humanity – Sławomir Elsner/Albrecht Dürer" from 23 May to 30 August 2026. The exhibition in the Semper-Kabinett features eight new compositions by Berlin-based Polish artist Sławomir Elsner (b. 1976), created over several months in response to works by Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528). Elsner transposes paintings by earlier masters into drawings of the same size, using extremely fine hatched colored pencil lines that create shimmering color concentrations with lightness and luminous depth. Up close the works appear abstract; from a distance forms and figures emerge. The centerpiece is Dürer's early panel "The Seven Sorrows of the Virgin" (1495/96).