Registration is now open for FAIC’s "Photomechanical Prints: History, Technology, Aesthetics, and Use" symposium. The symposium will take place at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC on October 31 - November 2, 2023. The registration fee is $199 for members of the American Institute for Conservation, $249 for non-members, and $119 for students.

Workshops and tours will take place on October 30 and November 3. Applications are currently being accepted for workshop on collotype printing, photogravure printing, and processes identification. Interested individuals must apply by April 1 to be considered for a workshop. Tours of photomechanical collections in prominent local institutions will be offered. Registration will open at the beginning of May on a first-come first-serve basis.

For roughly 150 years, people have been accustomed to seeing photomechanical prints on a daily basis. Prints exist in a variety of milieus with multiple variations over time, use, and geography. Historic and contemporary examples are prevalent in museums, libraries, archives, and personal collections worldwide. Photomechanical prints were developed to fill many needs including practical and economical methods for mass reproduction, techniques to facilitate the simultaneous printing of images and text, increased image permanence, a perception of increased truthfulness and objectivity, and an autonomous means of artistic expression. They exist at the intersections of numerous disciplines: photography and printmaking, functional and artistic practices, the histories of photography and the graphic arts, and the specialties of paper and photograph conservation.

The program will provide an opportunity for conservators, curators, historians, scientists, collections managers, catalogers, archivists, librarians, educators, printmakers, artists, and collectors to convene and collaborate while exploring all aspects of photomechanical printing. The resulting advancement of our collective understanding of these ubiquitous but under-researched materials will allow for new interpretations and improved approaches to their collection, interpretation, preservation, treatment, and display.

The program schedule, abstracts, and workshop information can be found at https://learning.culturalheritage.org/p/photomechanical. Register for the symposium and apply for the workshops now!

A show by Carlos Barberena, Atlan Arceo-Witzl, & CHema Skandal.

Please visit the link below for information about gallery hours and exhibition programming.

Mirroring the expansive nature of the Museum’s collection, recently acquired works on paper represent a wide variety of media and cultures and span 500 years, from an early 16th-century woodcut to a digital work created in a virtual platform from 2017 by the Indigenous artist Skawennati. New to the Museum: Prints, Drawings, and Photographs will showcase many of these rare and fascinating works.

More than 2,400 works on paper have entered the Museum’s collection since the 2016 exhibition A Decade of Collecting: Prints, Drawings, and Photographs. Since then, several exhibitions focused on vernacular photography, early modern European prints, Black abstraction, and contemporary art, have featured recent acquisitions. New to the Museum celebrates new arrivals that have not yet been displayed.

Pop-up books have a longer history than you might think. For centuries, books with interactive flaps, dials, and other moving parts have captivated readers of all ages.

Pop-up books go back centuries. Since at least the 1100s, readers have been lifting flaps, spinning dials, and opening elaborate three-dimensional spreads in the pages of books. The earliest interactive texts were intended for scholars. Over time, pop-up books found new audiences and grew in popularity, engaging a wide range of users from emperors to mathematicians to children.

Featuring books, maps, and ephemera from the Newberry collection, Pop-Up Books through the Ages traces the extensive history of hands-on reading. Tactile, interactive components can be found in everything from a 1483 astronomical calendar and a 1775 battle map to a 1932 edition of Pinocchio. Viewing these different items in one place, visitors will see how the art, science, and business of pop-up books evolved over hundreds of years.

In addition to exploring the past, the exhibition highlights the present and future of pop-up books, including the work of contemporary book and paper artists who are pushing the form in new directions. Two of these artists, Hannah Batsel and Shawn Sheehy, have even designed a pop-up version of the Newberry that you can take home and construct yourself!

Pop-Up Books through the Ages is generously supported by The National Endowment for the Arts, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Professor James H. Marrow and Dr. Emily Rose, Alan Templeton, Diane and Richard Weinberg, and The Movable Book Society.

HOURS
Tuesday – Thursday
10am – 7pm

Friday and Saturday
10am – 5pm

Admission for Newberry exhibitions is free. No advance registration required.

GUIDED PUBLIC TOURS
Visit for a free docent-led tour of Pop-Up Books through the Ages.

Tuesdays at 1pm
Thursdays at 11:30am
Fridays at 1pm
Saturdays at 1pm