Lisa Yuskavage has an unofficial title for her exhibition of drawings now on view at New York’s Morgan Library and Museum. She laughed throatily and said, “How about we call it ‘That Bitch Can Draw!’”

The 63-year-old artist, who is both revered and sneered at for her delectably lurid paintings of bosomy, overtly sexualized women, had jokingly suggested the title to Claire Gilman, curator of the show. In the end, they called it simply “Lisa Yuskavage: Drawings.” “Hopefully, that’s the thing that you walk away with, though: Damn, that bitch can draw,” Yuskavage said..

Surprisingly, this exhibition is the first focused exhibition devoted to Yuskavage’s drawing practice. The show, which is now on view, comprises 40 works, from 1990 to today, across graphite, pen, Conte, pastel, charcoal, distemper, monotype, gouache, watercolor, acrylic, and ink on paper. It offers many paths to head down and new ways to think of an artist who has become a hugely influential force on a younger generation of artists.

Yuskavage is synonymous with big, bold oil paintings in blazing hues from acid greens to hot pink. Earlier this year, she opened a splashy show of new paintings at David Zwirner in Los Angeles.  But she had never really imagined her drawings in a show.  “I didn’t really know what I had,” she admitted. “Things were just done and put away, done and put away…over all of these years. I just didn’t think about it.”

That changed, over the course of the past year, thanks to her registrar. She had been digitizing Yuskavage’s works and source materials, and a set of flat files at the artist’s Gowanus studio caught her attention. What was inside them? “Actually, I didn’t know,” Yuskavage recalled. Hundreds and hundreds of drawings, as it turned out. The registrar told Yuskavage she might want to come take a look at what she’d uncovered.

“When they were all collectively put out on the tables, there was such a range. I was pretty surprised,” she said. Finished works, in watercolor and pastels, were mixed in with pages torn from sketchbooks. One quick drawing had a 1-800 number scrawled on it. “I’ve had five studios since I moved to New York,” Yuskavage explained, “Every drawing had these weird memories connected to them. If I were listening to the radio and I found something interesting, I would just write it down.”

The drawings found their way into a Morgan exhibition almost by serendipity. Someone at David Zwirner called Claire Gilman, who had recently joined the Morgan Library, and asked if she was interested in seeing the work. Gilman, who was not aware that Yuskavage made works on paper, was both blown away and game to take a show on. In the end, the exhibition is a mix of never-before-seen works from Yuskavage’s studio and some highlights borrowed from collectors.

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