At the height of summer, many commercial galleries either close or stage dull group shows of their stable of artists. But White Cube has taken an ambitious step with Kupferstichkabinett, gathering 170 drawings from some of the most prominent names in contemporary art, including White Cube stalwarts Tracey Emin and Damien Hirst, and major artists not represented by the gallery, such as Rachel Whiteread and Lucian Freud.

The result is a sprawling but fascinating reflection of the different styles and uses of drawing in contemporary art.

The term Kupferstichkabinett has its origins in the encyclopaedic collections of works on paper in the palaces of the European nobility from the Renaissance onwards. Fittingly, the show has a historical feel — the walls are deep green and red, rather than the pristine white of modernism, and the drawings are often double-hung and crammed tightly together.

The scope of the drawings is enormous, from diagrammatic sketches to finished works. Hirst’s chief contributions are scrappy doodles for his sculptures — a rough sketch on torn lined paper surrounded by written notes and, appropriately, monetary sums shows the origins of his famous diamond skull — but Gary Hume’s drawings possess the same clear, punchy Pop confidence as his paintings.

This striking disparity is emphasised throughout. The liquid expressiveness of Emin’s plaintive monoprints is in stark contrast to the slow deliberation in Freud’s intense etching Ib (1984) nearby. David Hockney’s tender naked portrait of Peter Schlesinger from 1968, realised in faint pencil lines, could not be more different from a vast neighbouring drawing of the same year by Georg Baselitz — a violently vivid image of a hunter and his dog.

The quality of the works varies hugely but Kupferstichkabinett succeeds in homing in on what makes drawing such a special activity — in its informality and intimacy, it brings us closer to the white heat of an artist’s inspiration.
Until August 28 (020 7930 5373, whitecube.com)