"The Caprichos by Emily Lombardo" is a series of etchings which are in direct conversation and homage to Francisco Goya’s Los Caprichos, 1799. Both explore and present a satirical critique of contemporary culture and the forces that influence society along economic, racial, political, religious, and gender lines.

The “series of prints of whimsical subjects” changed everything. As Robert Flynn Johnson wrote, “Los Caprichos stands as the greatest single work of art created in Spain since the writings of Cervantes and the paintings of Velázquez, over one hundred fifty years earlier. These astonishing prints have cast a dark shadow of inspiration over generations of artists since their creation. Eugene Delacroix owned a copy of all eighty plates, and their influence is evident in the socially conscious art of Honoré Daumier and Edouard Manet, among others.” And the impact continues to this day. Emily Lombardo (1977) is an American artist who has lived and worked in Boston for over fifteen years and currently resides in Brooklyn, New York. She received a BFA from The Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston (2002) and an MFA from Tufts University (2013).

Her work is in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, The Boston Public Library, the Mead Art Museum at Amherst College and the Academy Art Museum, Easton, Maryland. She has taught printmaking since 2011 and has won numerous awards. Lombardo applies her knowledge of sculpture and print across a wide range of conceptual projects. She engages with appropriative art practices as a mode of investigating personal and cultural identity and makes conceptual, personalized work that investigates archetypes of cultural identity.

Lombardo applies her knowledge of sculpture and print across a wide range of conceptual projects. She engages with appropriative art practices as a mode of investigating personal and cultural identity and makes conceptual, personalized work that investigates archetypes of cultural identity.

The Academy Art Museum recently acquired Lombardo’s The Caprichos series for the Permanent Collection. The edition was published by Childs Gallery and printed at The Center for Contemporary Printmaking (Norwalk, CT) by printer Paul DeRuvo. The Art Gallery of Ontario loaned the entire set of Goya’s Caprichos so that we can exhibit the two series of prints in parallel. A publication will accompany the exhibition. The exhibition is supported by the Childs Gallery, Boston.