Invented in Munich in 1796, the new printmaking medium of lithography introduced a simpler, faster, and more economical means of producing all types of printed matter. This exhibition of more than 120 works, almost exclusively chosen from the Zimmerli Art Museum’s rich collection of nineteenth-century French graphic arts, presents a survey of French lithography from its establishment in Paris around 1815 through the end of the nineteenth century. By the 1820s, Paris had emerged as a major center of artistic lithography as the medium was taken up by both established and rising artists, including Horace Vernet, Nicolas Charlet, Théodore Géricault, and Eugène Delacroix. Their example inspired an ongoing development of the creation and production of lithographs by French artists, printers, and publishers which culminated in the 1890s with large color lithographic posters by such artists as Jules Chéret and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

The exhibition is funded in part by Ruth Schimmel, the Estate of Arline DuBrow, and donors to the Zimmerli’s Major Exhibition Fund: James and Kathrin Bergin, Alvin and Joyce Glasgold, Charles and Caryl Sills, the Voorhees Family Endowment, and the Jerome A. Yavitz Charitable Foundation, Inc.–Stephen Cypen, President.