Varied Female Archetypes, One Main Fixation.

Let's get one thing straight: John Currin can draw, but he's no draftsman. His material attraction to paint -- whether in the glowing flesh of his Cranach-inspired nudes or the crude impasto complexions of more modern subjects -- is undeniable. And life drawing has a limited role in his practice, despite his oft-professed interest in the old masters and his self-consciousness about being a figurative painter. So a certain degree of skepticism may accompany a visit to ''John Currin: Works on Paper -- A Fifteen Year Survey of Women,'' at the Andrea Rosen Gallery. What can these 77 drawings, most from the 1990s, tell us about this much-dissected artist or his way of seeing the world that we don't already know, in richer and more compelling detail, from his paintings? [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]