To propel itself into the 21st century, the Morgan Library & Museum began to present and collect Modern and contemporary art in the last few years. Now it is also beginning to concentrate more heavily on what it has always been known for: drawings.

This week the Morgan announced the formation of a drawing institute, which will present exhibitions, sponsor annual fellowships, host seminars and organize a full schedule of public and academic programs. Eugene V. Thaw, a Morgan trustee, collector and philanthropist, has given the institution $5 million to start it.

Called the Drawing Institute at the Morgan Library & Museum, it will collaborate with the International Music and Art Foundation Center for Drawings at the Courtauld Gallery in London, and with the Menil Drawing Institute and Study Center in Houston, to present small, focused drawings exhibitions, programs and publications. All three institutions have exceptional collections of drawings.

Linda Wolk-Simon, who was recruited from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to run the Morgan’s department of drawings and prints this year, will oversee the institute.

The institute will also start a fellowship program for scholars, conservators and others involved in drawings, who will spend part of their time researching and lecturing on specific subjects, as well as participating in seminars and public programs.

William M. Griswold, the Morgan’s director and a drawings scholar, said that in creating the institute, “I am hoping to strengthen the bridges between the academic and museum worlds in new ways.”

FULLER LOOK AT A RENOIR

Right now at the Frick Collection there is a small show about Giovanni Bellini’s “St. Francis in the Desert,” that great Renaissance painting, which recently underwent conservation and examination. Next year there will be another, perhaps more ambitious exhibition centering on Renoir’s painting “La Promenade,” also known as “Mother and Children,” another gem that belongs to the Frick. This work, widely considered its most important Impressionist canvas, is also so cherished by visitors that a postcard of the image is among the museum shop’s top sellers.