Celebrating the opening of the Robert Blackburn and Modern American Printmaking exhibition, join us for a special evening centered on the life and artistry of Jamaican American printmaker, Robert Blackburn. Driven by his mission for community access and engagement, diversity and inclusion, unpack Blackburn’s work, vision, legacy and impact on artists today. Leading the conversation will be Deborah Cullen, exhibition curator, and Essye Klempner, Program and Exhibition Manager of the EFA Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop Program with Stephanie Fox Knappe, Nelson-Atkins’ Samuel Sosland Curator of American Art, moderating.

Free, tickets required.

Surimono was a deluxe, privately published type of Japanese woodblock print that flourished in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In Edo (present-day Tokyo), artists of the ukiyo-e school, including luminaries such as Katsushika Hokusai, Utagawa Kunisada, and Kubo Shunman, received most of the commissions for these clever illustrations to commemorate special occasions, particularly the arrival of spring. A characteristic unique to surimono produced in Edo was the inclusion of one or more 31-syllable witty poems called kyōka, which translates to “mad verse.” While members of poetry clubs used these poems primarily to exchange wishes for the New Year, a closer examination of these poetic texts reveals the poets’ deep awareness and shared admiration of East Asian literary classics, especially of esteemed poetry collections. In this lecture, John T. Carpenter, the Mary Griggs Burke Curator of Japanese Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, explicates the text-image interaction at work in surimono, especially the visual punning that erudite artists of the ukiyo-e school often brought to the poems in these delightful prints. Generously sponsored by the Martin A. Ryerson Lectureship Fund.

Following the lecture, celebrate the Gallery’s latest publication, The Private World of Surimono: The Virginia Shawan Drosten and Patrick Kenadjian Collection, by Sadako Ohki, with Adam Haliburton.

Japanese print artist Noda Tetsuya and his wife, Dorit Bartur, discuss the intersections of his private life and public career with Janice Katz, Roger L. Weston Associate Curator of Japanese Art.

One of the most successful contemporary print artists, Noda Tetsuya uses a signature printing process that combines photography, silkscreen, and woodblock printing to capture the small and large moments of his daily life. Noda’s ongoing project called the Diary series, which documents occurrences of a particular day, began in the 1960s and now includes more than 500 images.

This spring the Art Institute of Chicago presents the largest museum exhibition of Noda’s work in North America, Noda Tetsuya: My Life in Print.

Please visit the 'External Link' below to register for this free lecture.

Aragón’s heroic-sized prints address the war on drugs unfolding in his hometown of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. Using innovative print techniques, such as cutting woodblocks and paper with an industrial-grade hand drill, he creates gripping portraits that humanize the victims of this violence.

This event is free and open to the public.

Bruegel may be best known to us now for his paintings of peasants, but he was also a prolific draftsman and designer of prints, and those prints after his designs brought him widespread fame during his day. This talk will examine the work of this masterful, wildly imaginative, and influential graphic artist whose works on paper led contemporary viewers through expansive landscapes and into hellish worlds.

Lecture by Dr. Nadine Orenstein, Drue Heinz Curator in Charge of the Department of Drawings and Prints, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum include "Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Drawings and Prints" (2001); "Hendrick Goltzius (1558 – 1617): Prints, Drawings and Paintings" (2003); and "The Renaissance of Etching" (2019-2020).

Free with general museum admission. (Note: General museum admission is free for residents of Macomb, Oakland and Wayne counties.)

In the 16th century, Antwerp was the main center of printmaking in Europe, followed by Haarlem and Amsterdam in the 17th century. Great printmakers were active in these centers, but publishers, whose names are often inscribed on the works, played a significant role in the creation and circulation of prints throughout Europe.

In this seminar, Nadine M. Orenstein of the Metropolitan Museum of Art will discuss print publishing through a selection of prints in the Harvard Art Museums collections. The seminar will take place in the Art Study Center, Level 4.

Free admission, but registration is required. Registration for this seminar will open on Friday, February 7, 2020, and participants will be admitted on a first-come, first-served basis. To register, please email am_register@harvard.edu.

Please arrive 15 minutes before the start of the program to allow sufficient time to sign in at the Art Study Center reception desk, and be prepared to present a photo ID.

Leonard A. Lauder, one of the foremost collectors of modernist art, also acquired American art posters from the 1890s made at the height of the Art Nouveau movement.

A selection of these exceptional works is on loan from The Metropolitan Museum of Art this spring. Allison Rudnick, Assistant Curator in the Department of Drawings and Prints at The Metropolitan Museum who oversees the collection, will discuss the significance of these posters with Norton Director Elliot Bostwick Davis.

Kiki Smith has been known since the 1980s for her multidisciplinary practice relating to the human condition and the natural world. She uses a broad variety of materials to continuously expand and evolve a body of work that includes sculpture, printmaking, photography, drawing, and textiles. For this talk she will focus on her work as a printmaker. Following the talk, which takes place in Taylor Hall 203, we will move to the Art Center's Focus Gallery exhibition Metal, Acid, Line: Etchings from the Loeb to discuss her stunning print Bird with Stars (2005), printed by Harlan and Weaver.

In the late 18th century, British artists embraced the medium of aquatint for its ability to produce prints with rich and varied tones that became even more striking with the addition of color. At the same time, the expanding purview of the British empire created a market for images of distant places. Book publishers seized on these two trends and began producing travel books illustrated with aquatint prints of Indian cave temples, Chinese waterways, African villages, and more. This talk examines how the medium of aquatint shaped the message of British imperialism. By remaking the world in aquatint, traveling artists and printmakers simultaneously remade what it meant to be British.

The lecture will be presented at 5:30pm on January 30th in Room 250 of the James Branch Cabell Library, 901 Park Ave. This lecture is free and open to the public.

Sunday at The Met—Artist Julie Mehretu on Printmaking.
SUNDAY, JANUARY 12, 2:00–3:00 P.M.
Julie Mehretu, in conversation with Nadine Orenstein, Drue Heinz Curator in Charge, Drawings and Prints, The Met
The acclaimed artist reflects on her artistic practice and printmaking techniques.
Presented in conjunction with the exhibition The Renaissance of Etching.

Free with museum admission