The Princeton University Art Museum has announced the appointment of Jun Nakamura as Assistant Curator of Prints and Drawings. He began his appointment on February 20.

At Princeton, Nakamura will work with the Museum’s extensive collections of more than 15,000 prints and drawings, comprising European, British, Latin American, and North American works from the fifteenth century to the present.

Prior to his appointment at Princeton, Nakamura was Suzanne Andrée Curatorial Fellow in Prints at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where he curated Macho Men: Hypermasculinity in Dutch and American Prints (2022–2023), and co-curated Pictures in Pictures (2022), Expressions (2021), and Of God & Country: American Art from the Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz Collection (2023). Previously, he held positions at Leiden University and the National Gallery of Art. He earned a PhD in art history from the University of Michigan, with a dissertation on the use and meaning of professional engraving style in the seventeenth-century Netherlands and beyond. He has an MA in art history from Southern Methodist University and a BFA in fashion design and art history from Washington University in St. Louis.

“Jun brings to the Museum an unusually wide range of expertise and interests, from seventeenth-century Dutch art to twentieth-century American printmaking, to the techniques of printmaking themselves, affording a rare combination of depth and breadth,” said James Steward, the Nancy A. Nasher–David J. Haemisegger, Class of 1976, Director. “We’re thrilled to have him join our Museum as we prepare for the launch of our new building and the first years of exhibitions and collections installations.”

APS member Lisa Pon and her colleagues, Tracy Cosgriff (The College of Wooster), Andreas Kratky (USC Media Arts + Practice), Curtis Fletcher and Erik Loyer (USC Libraries), were awarded a January 2021- December 2022 NEH Digital Humanities Advancement Grant for "Remastering the Renaissance: A Virtual Experience of Pope Julius II's Library in Raphael's Stanza della Segnatura". Through this project, they will develop a software connector between Unity and Scalar and the publication of a virtual reality experience of Pope Julius’s Stanza della Segnatura.

Clare Kobasa recently joined the Saint Louis Art Museum as assistant curator of prints, drawings and photographs. Kobasa also will manage the museum’s Print Study Room, where students, scholars and members of the public can make appointments for free viewings of more than 14,000 works on paper in the collection.

“Clare brings a wealth of relevant experience and curiosity to the position,” said Elizabeth Wyckoff, curator of prints, drawings and photographs. “We look forward her fruitful collaborations with colleagues throughout the Museum and with the many visitors to the Print Study Room.”

Kobasa recently completed a two-year appointment as the Suzanne Andrée Curatorial Fellow in Prints, Drawings and Photographs at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where she helped run the museum’s study room for works on paper. She also curated several exhibitions and installations, including “Woodcuts: Groove and Grain,” which explored the variety and malleability of the oldest printmaking medium.

Prior to her position in Philadelphia, she was a predoctoral fellow at the Bibliotheca Hertziana–Max Planck Institute for Art History in Rome, and held internships at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Art Institute of Chicago and Yale University Art Gallery.

Kobasa received a doctorate and a master’s degree in art history from Columbia University and a bachelor’s degree in art history and history from Swarthmore College.

Saint Louis Art Museum, "Clare Kobasa Joins the Saint Louis Art Museum as assistant curator", News release (October 27, 2020).

Congratulations to APS Director-at-Large Jan Howard and APS member Tatiana Reinoza, PhD on their appointments to the National Advisory Committee of Artura, a project of Brandywine Workshop and Archives. Howard is the Chief Curator and Houghton P. Metcalf Jr. Curator of Prints, Drawings and Photographs at RISD Museum. Reinoza is Assistant Professor of Art History and Latinx Studies at University of Notre Dame.

About Artura
Over the past 47 years the Brandywine Workshop and Archives has produced a diverse collection of over 1,400 original artworks, hosted over 500 multicultural artists from the US and around the world, and now have more than 800 prints displayed in satellite collections at 14 institutions across North America. In additional to our visiting artist programs, BWA sponsors high school and college internships in printmaking, digital media and collections management.

Artura.org is the nation’s first free online database of culturally diverse artwork and artists, and an open educational resource for researchers, curators, educators and students. A free, interactive digital archive of culturally diverse art and artists, Artura.org gives visitors access to a wide variety of voices, experiences, and histories not found in any other single open-educational resource. Our platform allows users to interact with art that represents contemporary cultures, histories, and traditions from around the globe.

Please visit the 'External Link' below to learn more about Artura's collection, programming (including free teaching resources and webinars), and leadership.

Furio Rinaldi, an expert on 15th- and 16th-century Italian drawings — particularly the schools of Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo — will start his tenure as Curator in the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts on May 4, 2020. Using the Museums’ extensive prints and drawings collection, Rinaldi will plan exhibitions, organize installations, recommend acquisitions, conduct research, and share interpretation with audiences.

Most recently Rinaldi was Associate Vice President, Specialist, and Head of Sale in the Department of Old Master and 19th-Century Drawings at Christie’s, New York. Prior to Christie’s, his curatorial experience includes positions in the Department of Drawings and Prints at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and at the Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan. Rinaldi has organized and authored De Ludo Geometrico: la matematica e la geometria di Leonardo, Disegni di Leonardo dal Codice Atlantico (Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan), and co-organized and contributed to a number of exhibitions, including Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York); Leonardo e Michelangelo: capolavori della grafica e studi romani (Capitoline Museums, Rome); Leonardo da Vinci: The Design of the World (Palazzo Reale, Milan); Il Primato del Disegno (Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan); Raffaello e Urbino (Galleria nazionale delle Marche, Urbino); and El Greco (Grand Palais, Paris). His field of expertise also includes Italian 20th-century drawings and artists such as Giorgio Morandi, Umberto Boccioni, and Carlo Carrà.

With a Ph.D. in art history from the University of Rome, Rinaldi also holds an MA and BA in Art History from the University of Milan. His scholarly awards include a fellowship from the Fondazione Roberto Longhi, Florence (2010-–2011), an Andrew W. Mellon Pre-doctoral Fellowship (2012–2013) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and a grant from the Renaissance Society of America (2015), among other distinctions. He has published extensively, including articles in The Burlington Magazine, Master Drawings, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art Journal, and has co-edited After 1564: Michelangelo’s Legacy in Late Cinquecento Rome (2016). He is currently working on the catalogue raisonné of Perino del Vaga with Linda Wolk-Simon.

Please visit the 'External Link' below to read the full press release.

The Neiman Center for Print Studies at Columbia University in New York has hired Samantha Rippner, who previously served as curator of modern and contemporary prints at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for fifteen years, as its new associate director. In her new role, Rippner will help oversee Neiman Gallery’s exhibition program, coordinate special projects and educational initiatives at the Center, and strengthen external partnerships.

Rippner first joined the Met while earning her Master’s degree from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and has held the positions of research assistant and curatorial assistant before being named curator in 2002. During her tenure, Rippner organized the museum’s first mural commission “Nicola Lopez’s Unbuilding Things” (2013) as well as the exhibitions “Rhythms of Modern Life: British Prints 1914–1939” (2008), and “The Prints of Vija Celmins” (2002) among other shows. She also worked as guest curator at the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University in California and, most recently, as a freelance curator.

“Samantha’s resume speaks for itself, and we’re absolutely thrilled to have her on staff,” said Tomas Vu-Daniel, who has helmed the Neiman Center since it was founded in 1996. “When it comes to the study of printmaking, she brings decades of valuable experience, and a new pair of eyes that will allow us to continue meeting the highest standards for our shows, works, and new projects.”

(Press release, Columbia University, 11/26/2019)

The National Gallery of Art recently announced two new prints and drawing curators among other recent additions to the curatorial staff: Shelley Langdale and Brooks Rich. Langdale began her Gallery tenure in May as curator and head of the department of modern prints and drawings. Rich also joined the Gallery in May as associate curator of old master prints.

Shelley Langdale, Curator and Head of Modern Prints and Drawings
Langdale refined her curatorial expertise while working with some of the nation's foremost collections of works on paper: first the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, then the Cleveland Museum of Art, and, for the past 17 years, the Philadelphia Museum of Art. While her primary focus has been modern and contemporary works on paper, Langdale has organized or collaborated on an unusual range of projects, from an exemplary study and exhibition of Pollaiuolo's 15th-century engravings in Cleveland to an exhibition of Yoshitoshi's magnificent color woodcuts in Philadelphia. Widely admired for her professional activity and generosity, she successfully mentored a long line of curatorial fellows and interns at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and was deeply involved with the city's artists and art organizations. She is also the current president of the Print Council of America, the national professional organization of curators of works on paper.

As the head of modern prints and drawings at the Gallery, Langdale oversees approximately 60,000 prints, watercolors, drawings, and multimedia works on paper. Her initial projects at the gallery include participation in an upcoming set of installations celebrating women artists and donors for the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment; addressing the storage and documentation needs of the Gallery's growing collections of workshop and artist archives (Gemini G.E.L., Crown Point Press, and the prints of Jasper Johns, among others); and an exhibition drawn from the Gallery's collection of modern works on paper. Langdale holds an MA from Williams College and a BA from Bowdoin College.

Brooks Rich, Associate Curator of Old Master Prints
Rich recently completed his PhD in early 16th-century Netherlandish engraving at the University of Pennsylvania, where he wrote his dissertation "The Mystery of the Monogram AC at the Margins of Early European Printmaking." Rich has an impressive range of curatorial experience in the departments of prints, drawings, and photographs at several leading institutions, including curatorial fellowships at the Rijksmuseum and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where he organized the exhibition Rockwell Kent–Voyager: An Artist's Journey in Prints, Drawings, and Illustrated Books (2012). Rich has also worked at the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

In his new role at the Gallery, Rich will balance the demands of cataloging, researching, caring for, and organizing exhibitions about the Gallery's collection of prints and illustrated books dated before 1900. In addition to his PhD, Rich holds an MA from Williams College and a BA from Bowdoin College.

Krannert Art Museum has amassed the largest museum collection of early modern Dutch political prints outside of Europe, thanks to strategic acquisitions guided by Maureen Warren, KAM’s curator of European and American art.

During the past year, KAM has added more than 100 Dutch political prints from the late 16th to the early 18th centuries. They portray a broad range of themes and formats, and add a wide variety of printmakers to KAM’s already strong collection of works on paper. In addition to political propaganda and satire, the newly acquired prints include views of the daily lives of women that depict their relative autonomy and independence in Dutch society. Other prints show images of Dutch naval power, trade, war and crime.

Warren, a leading print curator and scholar of early modern Dutch art, is curating the exhibition, planned for fall 2021 and provisionally titled “Fake News and Lying Pictures: Political Prints in the Dutch Golden Age.” The museum received a grant from the Getty Foundation to support the exhibition and an accompanying publication through The Paper Project, a funding initiative focused on prints and drawings curatorship. The exhibition will look at how images were used to put a favorable spin on events and persuade people to believe a certain retelling of history.

Please visit the 'External Link' below to read the full, illustrated press release published by Warren's colleagues at KAM.

The Wichita Art Museum proudly announces the establishment of the C. A. Seward Print Study Center, a museum focus on cultivating the premier collection of Prairie Print Makers and offering exhibition and education programs on this Wichita artist collective.

The Prairie Print Makers group was formed on December 28, 1930, when 11 of the best artists in Kansas gathered in the Lindsborg studio of artist Birger Sandzen. These Prairie Print Makers planned to offer affordable artwork that would appeal to collectors. The Print Makers created etchings, silkscreens, linoleum cuts, block prints, and lithographs. Within four years of its founding, the group boasted 47 active members and over 100 associate members. The collective continued until 1965--creating 34 gift prints between 1931 and that year.

Leading the formation of the group was artist C. A. Seward (pictured at left). Seward settled in Wichita in 1907 and soon after established one of the few fine printing services outside of New York City, wrote a foundational text on lithography, organized low-cost traveling exhibitions, and helped to establish the Prairie Print Makers. His efforts fostered a vital arts community in Wichita with a singular goal--to bring art into everyone's life.

PRINT FORUM ON AQUATINTS
This Forum is held in conjunction with WAM’s fall exhibition "Charles Capps: Prairie Print Maker" honoring one of the 10 founders of the Prairie Print Makers. Capps was born on September 14, and the C. A. Seward Dinner immediately following the Forum will include a toast on what would have been the artist’s 121st birthday.

The afternoon Print Forum is free and open to the public. Reservations are required for the C.A. Seward Dinner.

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

The Getty Research Institute (GRI) announced the appointment of Naoko Takahatake as Curator of Prints and Drawings on May 29, 2019. Please visit the 'External Link' below to read the full press release.