[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/heda_web.jpg” caption=”A painting by William Claesz Heda entitled Still Life (detail), a gift from Herman Levy, is on display at the McMaster Museum of Art. Photo by Jennifer Petteplace.”]One of the earliest works that Herman H. Levy donated to the McMaster Museum of Art (MMA) is a woodcut by Netherlandish artist, Hieronymous Cock. For Levy, a collector of important European art, the acquisition of a work by an artist who influenced many of the printmakers of his generation and thereafter made perfect sense.

This summer, the McMaster Museum of Art presents an exhibition of early German and Netherlandish works in the MMA Collection — those works of art that Levy himself gifted; those that the Levy bequest funds enabled the acquisition of; and those that were generously donated by knowledgeable individuals who know of, and love, the McMaster collection.

Included in the exhibition are “Late Gothic” artworks by Bouts; Northern Renaissance works by van Cleve, Durer, van Leyden and Gossaert; as well as Baroque period works by Heda, Rubens, Rembrandt and Dou.

Northern Art in the Age of Cock, Durer, Rubens and Rembrandt is part two of the Levy Exhibition Series. It has often been repeated that Herman H. Levy's high regard for education, lifelong learning and the University's place in the community were all part of what drew him to deposit the fruits of his generosity — his personal art collection of more than 185 European and American works of art, and a substantial bequest for the purchase of works of art — at McMaster University. The Levy Series in intended to honour the Museum's greatest benefactor through extensive curatorial research into his collection and a subsequent series of four to six exhibitions.

Northern Art in the Age of Cock, Durer, Rubens and Rembrandt continues until October 27, 2007.