Announcing the Winner of the 2026 Schulman and Bullard Article Prize

Luca Frepoli, doctoral candidate at the Technische Universität Berlin has been awarded the 2026 Schulman and Bullard Article Prize. Now in its twelfth year, this award is given by the Association of Print Scholars (APS) to an article published by an early-career scholar that features compelling and innovative research on prints or printmaking. Frepoli’s essay, “Beyond the Matrix: Transformation through Counterproofs in Three Copies of Maria Sibylla Merian’s Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium,” was published in Die Vielfalt des Vervielfältigen. Bildgebende Verfahren in der Kunst der Neuzeit und ihre Produkte, a volume edited by Magdalena Bushart, Livia Cárdenas, and Andreas Huth.

In his essay, Frepoli offers a careful analysis of three variants of Maria Sibylla Merian’s Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium (1705), each of which features counterproofs that rework the images. 

One juror noted, “This essay considers the fascinating creation of counterproofs by Maria Sibylla Merian, who used still-wet intaglio prints as a matrix for making new prints. The author brings broad theories on intermediality, as well as attention to material specificity, to bear on variations of Merian’s Suriname book held in Nuremberg, Windsor Castle, and Oxford. In so doing, the author reveals how counterproofing enabled Merian and others to continually rework, improve, and extend compositions, when coupled with the addition of watercolour. The essay is a testament to both the powers of close looking and big thinking.”

Another juror praised Frepoli’s article for bringing “new knowledge to Maria Sybilla Merian’s innovative use of counterproofs – themselves a fascinating area of print scholarship.  It is well researched, written, and argued and provides a model for future scholarship around the use of counterproofs as well as through expanding our understanding of the matrix itself.”

Frepoli’s careful analysis of the continuous reworkings of Merian’s Metamorphosis has important implications for print scholarship that will interest curators, collectors, and print scholars alike.

Luca Frepoli is a Doctoral Candidate at Technische Universität Berlin, working with Prof. Magdalena Bushart. His research focuses on the technical, aesthetic and economic dimensions of counterproofs in early modern printmaking. In 2023, he was awarded the Oxford Berlin Early Career Mobility Grant, which greatly supported the fieldwork for his study on variation through counterproofs in Maria Sibylla Merian’s prints. In 2026, a five-week interdisciplinary residency at the Oak Spring Garden Foundation enabled him to examine the natural-historical aspects of the variations in Merian’s work. Since 2026, he is working in inventory and cataloguing at the print collection of the private art foundation LETTER Stiftung in Cologne.

APS would like to acknowledge and thank this year’s jurors for their diligence and generosity in reading the submissions: Alexa Greist (Curator & R. Fraser Elliott Chair, Prints and Drawings, Art Gallery of Ontario); Morgan Ng (Assistant Professor of History of Art, Yale University); and Tatiana Reinoza (Associate Professor of Art History, University of Notre Dame).

The Schulman and Bullard Article Prize, which carries a $2,000 award, is generously sponsored by Susan Schulman and Carolyn Bullard and celebrates innovative contributions by early-career scholars to the field. Following the mission of APS, articles submitted for the prize can focus on printmaking across any geographic region and all chronological periods. Please visit the APS website for more details about submitting an article for consideration: https://printscholars.org/awards/ 

APS is a non-profit organization for print enthusiasts that brings together a diverse community of curators, collectors, academics, graduate students, artists, conservators, critics, independent scholars, and art dealers. APS aims to encourage innovative and interdisciplinary print scholarship and to facilitate dialogue among its members. Over 550 people from all over the world have joined APS since it was founded in 2014.