New York Illustration Week invites artists from far and wide for exhibitions and events all over town. This special edition DART List features shows of figurative art in some of the city's top galleries and museums uptown. In geographic order:

Dot, Dot, Dot: Roy Lichtenstein at the Morgan
This exhibition of large finished drawings is exhilarating in its range and scope - and the way it gives the lie to the ingrained idea that the Pop Art master's hand was missing from the action. Early drawings, done in pen and ink, sometimes seem too much like the commercial art they were spoofing. But when Lichtenstein took up dry media, such as graphite, pencil, and litho crayon, everything changed. The artist's touch is everywhere, from the fake ben-day dots he created by rubbing a waxy crayon through a metal screen to line work with a rough, worked-over quality that capture areas of sparkling light. Roy Lichtenstein: The Black-and-White Drawings, 1961-1968 at the Morgan Library and Museum, 225 Madison Avenue at 36^th Street, NY, NY.

Left to right: George W. Bellows, Dempsey and Firpo, 1924; courtesy Whitney Museum of American Art. Roy Lichtenstein, I Know How You Must Feel, Brad!, 1963; courtesy Morgan Library & Museum. John Currin, Rippowam, 2006; courtesty Gagosian Gallery.

Global Nomad: Francesco Clemente at Mary Boone
Clemente, one of the Neo-Expressionist art stars of the 80s, who seemed to attract a celebrity following on arriving here from Italy, influenced many illustrators at a time when technical finesse ruled. His use of primitive motifs and strikingly crude surfaces came as a breath of fresh air. In his global travels, especially to India and Brazil, he adopted a visual vocabulary that continues to charge his art with energy.The  current show includes a number of portraits on paper, done over the last four years. Private Geography: Francesco Clemente. Mary Boone. 745 Fifth Avenue at 58^th Street, NY, NY.

Visionary and Fantastic: Goya at the Frick
The highlight of a show of Spanish drawings from the 17^th to the 19^th century is its last section, 22 drawings by Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828). Filling a small gallery, scenes of gaiety are interspersed with a hideous depiction of a man being tortured, and men watching a peepshow. Expressive, finely detailed and realistic, Goya's drawings serve as an end in themselves, rather than the means to another medium. Another 32 drawings by Goya's predecessors span the 17^th and 18^th centuries. Also on view is the newly restored Portrait of Philip IV by Velasquez. The Spanish Manner: Drawings from Ribera to Goya, The Frick Museum, 1 East 70^th Street, NY, NY.

Hard Bodies: Edward Hopper and the Ashcan School
While not an exhibition of figurative art per se, the show currently up at the Whitney includes so much great figurative art that I had to include it in this list. Drawn mainly from the museum's collection, the show includes paintings by Hopper, John Sloan, Thomas Hart Benton, Guy Pène du Bois, Reginald Marsh, Robert Henri, Charles Scheeler, and Charles Burchfield among others, along with a big bronze nude sculpture by Gaston Lachaise. Modern Life: Edward Hopper and His Time, Whitney Museum of American Art, 945 Madison Avenue, at 75th Street, NY, NY.

Biting the Hand that Feeds You: John Currin at Gagosian
Coming up with a unique strategy for creating pictorial art when Minimalism ruled put John Currin on the map from the outset of his career. In an interview with Glenn O'Brien in Interview magazine, Currin talked about finding a way to make art he enjoyed making at a time when nobody was painting the human figure in a realistic way. With savage wit, he also created a new way of being subversive in a high-stakes art market. John Currin: New Work. Gagosian Gallery, 980 Madison Avenue at 76^th Street, NY, NY.

Paint Made Flesh: Jan Gossert at the Met
In a groundbreaking show that brings to light a Northern Renaissance master, in context with the art of  his predecessors and contemporaries, this exhibition presents the first major survey in the U.S. of Flemish artist Jan Gossart (1478-1532). The show spans the arc of his career, from the closely observed pen and ink studies from his youth to the Carondelet Diptych (from the Musée du Louvre), considered one of the masterpieces of early Netherlandish portraiture. An entire gallery at the end is devoted to his portraits, which express Gossert's humanism through their naturalism. Man, Myth, and Sensual Pleasures: Jan Gossart's Renaissance. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1130 Fifth Avenue at 82^nd Street, NY, NY.

Also see last week’s Illustration Week Special and DART List for more exhibitions and events.