Printing matrices often have storied pasts. Rembrandt’s plates were reprinted, reworked, otherwise altered, and sent under the roller until little of the artist’s hand remained. One eighteenth-century printer etched over a Rembrandt plate in the name of restoration before cutting it down into smaller plates; another printed Rembrandt’s plates with masks, plate tone, and in combination with other plates in order to create new compositions; and Rembrandt himself repurposed a plate by Hercules Segers. Beyond Rembrandt, Gauguin’s woodblocks were printed in editions by himself, by printer Louis Roy, and posthumously by Pola Gauguin. The resulting editions vary widely in inking, coloring, and support. Contemporary artists’ prints produced by publishers like Gemini G.E.L or Crown Point Press are often as much a product of collaboration with the printers as of the artist’s singular hand. While the "Blocks, Plates, and Stones" conference held at the Courtauld in 2017 did much to shed light on the matrix itself, examining the contributions of printers and publishers adds complexity to notions of authorship and illuminates processes particular to the medium; and looking at the afterlife and reuse of matrices provides evidence of artistic encounters, exchanges, and processes.

This session seeks papers that address the printing matrix as site of mediation, across time and geography. Papers topics might include:
• Reuse, restoration, or defacement of printing matrices
• The contributions of printers in printing other artists’ matrices
• Creative processes manifest in the printing of matrices, rather than in their making
• Collaboration via the matrix

Panel Chair: Jun Nakamura, University of Michigan (junn@umich.edu)

In order to apply, please prepare to submit the following and send via email to the chair listed above before July 23, 2019.
• Completed proposal form (please click 'External Link' below to download the form).
• A shortened CV (close to 2 pages).

Please note that a paper that has been published previously or presented at another scholarly conference may not be delivered at the CAA Annual Conference.

Please visit the 'External Link' below for more information.