An extraordinary array of artworks practically leap off the flimsy paper they’re drawn or painted on in the new exhibit “Paper, Color, Line: European Master Drawings from the Wadsworth Atheneum” on view through April 27.

“I have been asked “The Wadsworth has European drawings?” said Oliver Tostmann, the Wadsworth’s Susan Morse Hilles Curator of European Art to the crowd at the exhibit’s opening reception in mid-January. He curated this exhibit that answers the question with a defiant yes.Tostmann said the exhibit has been years in the making, an effort that included the first substantial cataloging of the collection. To get to the point where the works could be placed on the walls, the whole collection needed to be extensively examined and organized.

Introductory text in the entranceway to “Paper, Color, Line” notes that “since the mid-19th century, the museum has acquired a diverse group of about 1,250 European works on paper that spans more than 500 years. Many of these drawings have been on view for decades, while others are exhibited here for the first time.”

This apparent lack of attention may suggest that the Wadsworth’s European drawings collection is somehow subpar, but that’s not remotely true.

One of the standouts in the show is “Portrait of an Englishwoman” by the British leader of the Vorticist movement, Wyndham Lewis. Created around 1913-14, it is a portrait of a woman the way Marcel Duchamp’s “Nude Descending a Staircase” is a portrait of a woman. The angular, industrial, architectural arrangement of rectangular and pointy shapes is rendered in graphite and thick watercolors. Tostmann theorizes that because “Portrait of an Englishwoman” was featured in a Russian journal of the time, it may have had a direct effect on the nascent Constructivist movement.

Another riveting item is “Portrait of Otto Freund” by Austrian artist Egon Schiele, where Freund’s face and hands are delicately colored but his torso and legs are essentially blank.

All the dozens of works in the exhibit fall under the usual definition of drawings done on paper using pen, pastel, watercolor or other media. But “Paper, Color, Line” also likes to mess with that definition. Some are practically paintings. Some are by artists better known for working in other media, like the sculptor Henry Moore or the portraitist and landscape painter Thomas Gainsborough. A large Toulouse-Lautrec drawing looks more like one of the artist’s paintings than his posters or illustrations. A butterfly-themed collage by Max Ernst makes the cut because it’s mounted on paper as well as cork.

Other artists in the show are undeniably most famous for their drawings, like the 19th-century Frenchmen Honoré Daumier and Gustave Doré or the politicized 1930s-era German illustrator George Grosz.

Despite the great diversity of works in the show, and the fact that they are generally arranged chronologically, there’s a nice flow to how they are hung on the walls. Many of the earlier drawings are done with iron gall ink, which can have a dark brown hue, giving the whole side of the exhibit area a warm sepia glow. From the soft, rich 18th-century watercolors to some rather garish and splashy modern art, the drawings in “Paper, Color, Line” effortlessly draw your attention.

Special events at The Wadsworth connected with the “Paper, Color, Line” exhibit include a screening of the 2016 biographical film “Egon Schiele: Death and the Maiden” on Feb. 15, a curator talk on Feb. 22 at 1 p.m., a still life drawing demonstration with Stephano Espinoza Galarza on Feb. 23, a Hartford Symphony Orchestra “Sunday Serenades” concert with the theme “A European Sketchbook” on March 2 at 2 p.m. (preceded by a gallery talk at 1 p.m.), ink drawing with Luis Colan from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on March 23 and a lecture by Joachim Homann of Bowdoin College on April 2.

A different new exhibit on a different floor of the Wadsworth neatly complements “Paper, Color, Line,” since it also mainly involves paper. “Prints Charming: Recent Prints and Acquisitions” is more randomly curated than “Paper, Color, Line” and basically shows off recently purchased or donated works that the museum is particularly proud of. It’s also a smaller exhibit drawn from a much larger collection. Some of the most eye-catching pieces are the early Picasso print “The Frugal Repast,” Kathe Kollwitz’s 1907 etching “La Carmagnole,” one of Jasper John’s bold “Target” screenprints of the mid-1970s and recent works as American lithographer’s charming 2019 picture of two children with big nets surrounded by even bigger bugs, “The Young Entomologists.”

“Paper, Color, Line: European Master Drawings from the Wadsworth Atheneum” is on view through April 27 and “Prints Charming: Recent Prints and Acquisitions” is on view through May 25 at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, 600 Main St., Hartford. Visiting hours are Thursday through Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. Admission is $20, $15 seniors, $10 students and free for Hartford residents and youth under 17. thewadsworth.org.