The fiftieth annual meeting of the American Historical Print Collectors Society will take place in New Bedford, Massachusetts from June 9th through June 11th, 2026. The program will include a day trip to Nantucket Island and an optional session on June 8th at the Heritage Museum in Sandwich, where the AHPCS held its first annual meeting in 1975. The first two days will be spent at the New Bedford Whaling Museum exploring the museum’s rich collections documenting the region’s culture and history. A series of lectures will include talks on whaling and maritime prints, print-related scrimshaw, prints illustrating Melville’s Moby Dick, and the etchings by local artists R. Swain Gifford and LeRoy Yale. Curator-led tours will focus on the prints on view in the museum’s galleries and provide access to additional prints in the museum’s Research Room. Walking tours will visit historic sites in the city including the Seamen’s Bethel, the Mariners’ Home, the Customs House, and the New Bedford Public Library. Thursday will feature a trip to Nantucket Island for a curator-led tour of the Nantucket Whaling Museum. Optional afternoon activities include a historic walking tour of the town or a bus tour of historic sites on the island. Registration is now open. For more information go to https://ahpcs.org/newbedford/ Membership in the AHPCS is not required, but If you are not already a member of the AHPCS, please consider joining. Membership fees begin at $50. If you’re unable to come for the full three days, a special one-day rate of $100 includes admission to the New Bedford Whaling Museum, the morning lecture program, and other activities at the Whaling Museum. Meals are available for an extra charge. For more information, contact Nancy Finlay at nfinlay@outlook.com

The unique beauty of the American Southwest has inspired generations of artists including printmakers. Thanks to Barbara J. Thompson’s generous gift of fine art prints on display in "Southwest Impressions: Prints from the Barbara J. Thompson Collection", the Petrie Institute of Western American Art is able to tell these multi-faceted stories of inspiration, exchange, and artistic excellence. In conjunction, this symposium will consider an array of American printmakers’ stories and techniques from the late 1800s into the mid-1900s as they sought to capture and express their impressions of the region.

In collaboration with St Cuthberts Mill – makers of heritage Somerset printmaking paper – the Centre for Print Research is delighted to be hosting a 1-day symposium dedicated to paper. This special event will bring together experts and enthusiasts, featuring contributions from John Purcell Paper, Michael Craine of Cranfield Colours , and the St Cuthberts Mill ambassadors for Somerset paper.

New Bedford and Nantucket, Massachusetts, share a rich maritime history, reflected in their museum collections and well-preserved historic districts. You are invited to spend two days in New Bedford for a series of lectures, gallery talks and behind-the-scenes tours focusing on the prints and print-related artifacts in the New Bedford Whaling Museum and visits to other historic sites in the city. The third day will include a program at the Nantucket Whaling Museum and the option of either a historic walking tour of the town or a bus tour of the island. Most meals will take place at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, including a cocktail reception in the museum’s Lagoda Gallery followed by dinner in the Harborview Gallery.

SAVE THE DATES: June 9-11th 2026. The program is sponsored by the American Historical Print Collectors Society, AHPCS, which is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary. An optional program on June 8th, will be held at the Heritage Museum in Sandwich, where the Society held its first annual meeting in June 1975.

The registration will open early in 2026. For more information, see the website: https://ahpcs.org/ Membership in the AHPCS is not required, but If you are not already a member of the AHPCS, please consider joining. Membership fees begin at $50.

Oct 17, 2025 - 10am–5pm
Hybrid: School of Art and Design, Room 312, or via Zoom, with overflow seating in Auditorium (KAM 62)

This symposium will explore artistic production, practices, and the agency of printed media before 1750 as they intersect with themes of sexuality and gender.

Register here for the Zoom link: https://illinois.zoom.us/meeting/register/KCdQF1CASaCVwKg0dAwpKw#/registration

Conceptions of sexuality and gender underwent profound changes in Europe during the premodern era (roughly 1300–1750) and were an important avenue of exploration for printmakers. In art prints, broadsheets, fashion plates, and anatomies alike, human subjects were fashioned and viewed in conversation with cultural attitudes and beliefs about gender and sexuality. Canonical works such as Albrecht Dürer’s Adam and Eve and Henrick Goltzius’s Farnese Hercules as Seen from Behind not only convey notions of artistic excellence but also their ideas about idealized bodies, gender roles, and sexuality. Additionally, gender and sexuality had profound effects on artistic practices and training. In a time when many women were precluded from traditional apprenticeships and professional guilds, printmaking could present alternative paths to collaboration and network building. Moreover, as an artform linked with the broad circulation of knowledge but also with intimate, private viewing, prints open doors to consider how artists and beholders conceived of their own experiences of gender and sexuality in and outside of social norms.

The event will be hybrid, blending in-person presentations with online presentations via Zoom to make the event more equitable and permit international participation, and will also include a walk-through of the exhibition. The talks will be projected for viewing together at the museum, from 10 am–4 pm, with a tour of the exhibition* to follow.

This symposium is being held in conjunction with Imagination, Faith, and Desire: Art and Agency in European Prints, 1475–1800, curated by Maureen Warren, and on view at Krannert Art Museum from Sep 25, 2025–Feb 26, 2026.

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

Envisioning Gender and Sexuality in Premodern European Prints
Friday, October 17, 2025
10:00 am – 5:00 pm CDT (USA)

Note about Time Zones: Timings are given for the U.S.A. Central Daylight Time (CDT).
The start time for speaker presentations in different time zones are as follows:
USA Pacific Daylight Time (UTC -7) 8:30 am
USA Eastern Daylight Time (UTC -4) 11:30 am
UK (UTC +1) 4:30 pm
Europe (UTC +2) 5:30 pm


Morning Presentations – 10:30 am – 12 pm
• Jolene Zigarovich, Ph.D., University of Northern Iowa
“ ‘To be seen a most surprising Hermaphrodite’: The Visual Circulation of Intersex Lives and Bodies”

• Darja (Daria) Kocerova, Ph.D. Candidate, The Warburg Institution, London
“Once again about The Images of “Henetaster” and Adultery in Early Modern Europe” (Virtual)

• Sunmin Cha, Ph.D. Candidate, Columbia University, New York
“Subverting Eden: Hans Baldung Grien’s Queer Reimagining of Adam and Eve” (Virtual)

Afternoon Presentations – 1:00–2:30 pm
• Saskia Beranek, Ph.D., Wonsook Kim College of Fine Arts, Illinois State University
“Bearing Fruit: Female Portraits and Collective Identity in Dutch Maps”

• Kendra Grimmett, Ph.D., Ball State University
“His Little Death: Danger, Intimacy, and Power in Barthel Beham’s Judith Seated on the Body of Holofernes”

• Tatiana C. String, Ph.D., The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
“The Fine Line between Pleasure and Pain: Homoerotic Performance in Bartel Beham’s Battle for the Banner”

Keynote Address – 2:30–3:30 pm
• Nicole Cook, Ph.D., Museum of Fine Art, Boston
“Nightwalking and Nightwatching: Navigating Gender at Night in Early Modern Dutch Works on Paper”

Join us for a two-day program exploring the early twentieth-century revival of relief printmaking. Events include a keynote by artist Christiane Baumgartner at the Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College (Nov. 13), in conjunction with the exhibition "An Unruly Assembly: The Culley Collection of Woodblock Prints," followed by a study day at LACMA (Nov. 14), featuring the exhibition "Deep Cuts: Block Printing Across Cultures."

Co-organized by the Benton Museum of Art and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Symposium: Stradanus at Cooper Hewitt

November 6-7, 2025
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
New York

Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum will be hosting the symposium “Stradanus at Cooper Hewitt” as the culmination of its multi-year Stradanus Project on November 6-7, 2025.

The museum is home to 143 sheets of drawings and inscriptions by the Netherlandish artist Johannes Stradanus (1523-1605), also known as Jan van der Straet. With support from the Getty’s Paper Project Initiative and the Smithsonian Institution’s National Collections Program, Cooper Hewitt embarked on The Stradanus Project, an effort to conserve, research, and digitize Stradanus’s drawings, which served as preparatory designs for his engravings.

In 2021-2022, Cooper Hewitt conducted a conservation survey of all of its Stradanus sketches. Based on this information, the team selected 39 sheets for lining removal and treatment, which was completed in 2024. As a result of conservation work and research, drawings and inscriptions that have been obscured for more than a century have been newly revealed.

Over two days, 14 curators, scholars, and conservators will present new research on Stradanus. In addition to these presentations, there will be viewings of Cooper Hewitt’s Stradanus holdings in the Drue Heinz Study Center for Drawings and Prints.

To register for the symposium and explore the full schedule of presentations and abstracts, please visit The Stradanus Project webpage:
https://www.cooperhewitt.org/the-stradanus-project

Cooper Hewitt’s Stradanus Project is made possible with support from the Getty Foundation through The Paper Project initiative; and received Federal support from the Smithsonian Collections Care Initiative, administered by the National Collections Program. Additional support for the Stradanus at Cooper Hewitt symposium has been provided by the Tavolozza Foundation

The University of Mary Washington and the American Historical Print Collectors Society present:
Lasting Legacy: A Celebration of American Historical Prints through the Career of Wendy Joan Shadwell (UMW '63)

Thursday, September 25, 5:00 p.m.

Hurley Convergence Center (HCC), Digital Auditorium (Rm. 136) on the campus of the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

Reception with refreshments following.

Please join us for a conversation with Clayton Lewis and Allison Stagg about the important role of popular American historical prints in connection with the career and philanthropy of Wendy Shadwell, alumna of Mary Washington ('63), Curator of Prints Emerita at the New York Historical Society, and President of the American Historical Print Collectors Society (1998 - 2001).

Participants:

Clayton Lewis | President, American Historical Print Collectors Society and Curator Emeritus, William L. Clements Library at the University of Michigan

Allison Stagg (’02, Art History) | Researcher and lecturer in the Department of Architecture and Art History at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany, member AHPCS

Moderator: Julia DeLancey | Professor of Art History, Department of Cultural and Philosophical Inquiry, University of Mary Washington

Sponsored by Department of Cultural and Philosophical Inquiry, UMW Galleries, the Visiting Artists and Scholars Program (Department of Studio Art), and the Wendy J. Shadwell '63 Program Endowment in Art History in collaboration with the American Historical Print Collectors Society.

This event is free. Please register by email at : clayclem@umich.edu. Deadline for registration: September 15.

If you have any questions about this event, please contact Clayton Lewis (clayclem@umich.edu)

Also, please consider joining us for :

A tour of Belmont, American artist Gari Melchers’ Home and Studio
Thursday, September 25, 1:00 pm

Belmont is the spectacular home and studio of American Naturalist artist Julius Garibaldi (Gari) Melchers (1860-1932). This 27-acre estate features the historic home, art studio and galleries, tours, gardens, historic buildings and several miles of walking trails. Gari Melchers Home and Studio serves as a resource for studying the work of a major American artist and serves as an art center for the people of the Fredericksburg area.

We will meet at Belmont at 1:00 pm for a tour starting at 1:30. Admission is $10

Location: 224 Washington Street, Falmouth, VA 22405

Parking is available on site. Website: www.garimelchers.org

Please register by email at : clayclem@umich.edu. Deadline for registration: September 15.
Tour space is limited to 12 people

Staged in conjunction with the Vanderbilt University Museum of Art’s Fall 2025 exhibition "Paper Backs: Hidden Stories of European Prints from the VUMA Collection," this virtual symposium will bring together curators who oversee collections of European prints at museums spread across the South. Each curator will give a lightning-style, 10-minute presentation about their museum’s pre-1915 European print holdings, with the goal of making these collections better-known amongst local, regional, and global audiences of both amateurs and professionals. The symposium also seeks to initiate a collective discussion about how and why European prints often served as catalysts for the formation of institutional art collections in a region with limited public art infrastructure before the turn of the twentieth century. How did old master and early modernist European prints in particular support various progressive and post-World War I- era agendas? What challenges and opportunities face the study and promotion of such objects in the South today?

Participants:

Dr. Sarah Cartwright
Chief Curator and Ulla R. Searing Curator of Collections, The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Florida State University
Sarasota, FL

Dr. Dana E. Cowen
Sheldon Peck Curator for European and American Art before 1950, Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, NC

Dr. Maggie Crosland
The Fariss Gambrill Lynn and Henry Sharpe Lynn Curator of European Art, Birmingham Museum of Art
Birmingham, AL

Dr. Nelda Damiano
Pierre Daura Curator of European Art, Georgia Museum, University of Georgia
Athens, GA

Dr. Alyssa M. Hughes
Works on Paper Specialist for the Frank Raysor Collection, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
Richmond, VA

Dr. Courtney Wilder
Sullivan Collection Curator, Vanderbilt University Museum of Art
Nashville, TN

A workshop and symposium at Dorich House Museum

This all-day symposium at Dorich House Museum will explore the museum’s collection of prints and situate them within the framework of Russian and global prints history. The day consists of a morning printmaking workshop, an afternoon symposium and an evening drinks reception.

The morning workshop will be a practical demonstration of a type of folk print known as “lubok”, with Helen Higgins (Courtauld Institute of Art). Over lunch, Louise Hardiman will lead a tour of the museum’s Russian art collection. The afternoon presentations will explore the history of printmaking in the Russian Empire, including: the activities of western and Russian printmakers in Russia and the west; patronage of printmaking by imperial rulers; print connoisseurship; and transnational connections and knowledge transfer in the printed medium.

Alongside the day’s events, Dorich House Museum will launch a virtual exhibition of the museum’s collection of prints, curated by Lauren Warner-Treloar.

Three ticket options are available:

Morning Workshop (with lunch) 10:00-13:00: £30
Afternoon Symposium (with drinks reception) 13:00-19:00: £20
Online Symposium 13:00-18:00: £5

If you would like to attend for the full day, please purchase a ticket for both the Morning Workshop and Afternoon Symposium individually.

Bookings through Eventbrite.

Any profit from this event will go towards the conservation and care of the print collection.

This event is supported by the Association for Art History, Association of Print Scholars, Dorich House Museum, Techne, UKRI-Arts and Humanities Research Council, and the Visual & Material Culture Research Centre at Kingston School of Art.