NEW YORK—As museums continue to grapple with the effects of the recession, more and more institutions seem to be mounting exhibitions of works from their permanent collections. The Museum of Modern Art in New York is no exception, and this Tuesday the museum opened its latest show, "Compass in Hand: Selections from The Judith Rothschild Foundation Contemporary Drawings Collection."

But an in-house show does not mean small-scale — “Compass in Hand” is MoMA's biggest drawing exhibition to date, with some 300 works on paper by more than 150 artists. Some of those artists, as well as many more, came out for the show's opening, including Chuck Close, Jim Lambie, Ellsworth Kelly, Marilyn Minter, Marcel Dzama, Kiki Smith, Brice Marden, Polly Apfelbaum, and Paul Graham. They mingled with fashion designer Cynthia Rowley, actress Mary Kate Olsen, mega–works on paper collector Werner Kramarsky, and museum folk like Thelma Golden, director of the Studio Museum Harlem.

Click on the photo gallery at left to see photos from the opening of “Compass in Hand.”