Organized by The San Diego Museum of Art, Divine Desire: Printmaking, Mythology, and the Birth of the Baroque showcases engravings produced in the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries in northern Europe and Italy. These sophisticated works of art, produced by the leading artists of the period, are assembled primarily from The San Diego Museum of Art's Permanent Collection, together with several important loans from significant Southern California collections. Themes revolve around the romantic entanglements of the gods of Classical Antiquity and how such imagery relates to a Reformation/Counter-Reformation Europe. While these prints were produced using visually stunning and sophisticated techniques in order to delight the senses of their audience, their subject matter served a moralizing and instructive purpose. As in Greek and Roman times, the gods served as foils for contemporary mortals, complete with the imperfections inherent to human nature. By turns comic, erotic, satirical, and moralizing, the imagery reflects the norms and ideals of a society undergoing agonizing transition. Featured artists include Hendrick Goltzius (1558–1616), Jacob Matham (1571 – 1631), and Albrecht Dürer (1471 – 1528). The spectacular artistic achievements explored in Divine Desire signal a crucial moment in the artistic developments of the Baroque Age in Europe.

This exhibition is accompanied by several related programs including Culture & Cocktails on Thursday, May 28, and a gallery talk with the curator on Saturday, May 30.

This spring, the Museum is proud to partner with the Portland Opera and the David Hockney Foundation to present David Hockney: A Rake’s Progress. Hockney, one of the most significant artists of our generation, has long engaged with the paintings and engravings of 18th-century English artist William Hogarth. Hockney was particularly captivated by Hogarth’s series The Rake’s Progress, 1733, which chronicles the rise and fall of Tom Rakewell, the son and heir of a rich merchant, who squanders his money on luxurious living, prostitution, and gambling. After a trip to New York, Hockney produced his own interpretation of the story. Hockney’s A Rake’s Progress was published as a portfolio of 16 etchings in 1963 and is considered one of the high points of his early career.

In 1975, Hockney collaborated with director John Cox to create a new production of Igor Stravinsky’s opera based on Hogarth’s The Rake’s Progress. Hockney drew inspiration from the 18th-century master’s engravings, endowing the set designs and costumes with a linearity that speaks not only to the language of prints, but also to the modern angularity of Stravinsky’s score. The result is both playful and rigorous, a perfect blend of the aural and visual.

The exhibition is an exciting look into Hockney’s creative process. It will feature etchings, drawings, models, and watercolors that depict the 1975 opera’s set design from initial idea to final concept, offering a rare glimpse into working methods of one of England’s finest living artists.

The exhibition of this work is complemented by the Portland Opera’s production of The Rake’s Progress on June 11, 12, and 14, 2015, featuring Hockney’s celebrated scenic and costume designs.

The University of Glasgow holds one of the UK's most important collections of early printed books, or ‘incunabula’, published over the fifty years from the invention of printing in the mid-15th century.

The collection is the largest in Scotland and more than half comes from the library of Hunterian founder Dr William Hunter (1718-83).

Showcasing the University’s rich collections and the results of new research from the Glasgow Incunabula Project, this major exhibition charts the development of the early printed book in Europe, exploring the transition from manuscript to print and its impact on late medieval society.

The invention of mechanical movable type printing revolutionised book making in Europe and was instrumental in the emergence of the Renaissance and the spread of learning more generally.

Ingenious Impressions features a number of key themes, including the transition from scribal to print culture, the design, decoration and illustration of the earliest printed books, the technology and challenges of printing, and finally 500 years of book ownership and collecting.

The exhibition also features demonstrations on a replica 15th century printing press, on loan from the University of Reading.

International Print Center New York presents 15th Anniversary Exhibition of the New York Society of Etchers in commemoration of this milestone in the Society’s history. The exhibition is curated by Stephen A. Fredericks and will be on view in IPCNY’s Project Space at 508 West 26th St, 5th Floor, from June 11 – July 31, 2015. Presented during IPCNY’s 15th Anniversary year and concurrently with New Prints 2015/Summer, the show brings together prints from a handful of current New York Society of Etchers directors and additional artists who have supported the Society during its 15-year exhibiting history. Also included will be catalogs, photographs, and various historical items from the collection of Stephen A. Fredericks and the New York Society of Etchers.

This exhibition will focus on the printed propaganda that either reviled or glorified Napoleon Bonaparte, on both sides of the English Channel. It explores how his formidable career coincided with the peak of political satire as an art form.

2015 marks the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo – the final undoing of brilliant French general and emperor Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821). The exhibition will include works by British and French satirists who were inspired by political and military tensions to exploit a new visual language combining caricature and traditional satire with the vigorous narrative introduced by Hogarth earlier in the century.

The print trade had already made the work of contemporary British artists familiar across Europe. Continental collectors devoured the products of the London publishers, and artists across Europe were inspired by British satires.

This exhibition includes work by James Gillray, Thomas Rowlandson, Richard Newton and George Cruikshank, some of the most thoughtful and inventive artists of their day.

The range and depth of the British Museum’s collection allows the satirical printmakers’ approach to be compared with that of portraitists and others who tended to represent a more sober view of Napoleon.

The exhibition begins with portraits of the handsome young general from the mid-1790s and ends with a cast of his death mask and other memorabilia acquired by British admirers.

Along the way, the prints will examine key moments in the British response to Napoleon – exultation at Nelson’s triumph in the Battle of the Nile in 1798, celebration of the Peace of Amiens in 1802, fear of invasion in 1803, the death of Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, and Napoleon’s triumph at Austerlitz, delight at his military defeats from 1812 onwards, culminating in his exile to Elba in 1814.

1815 sees triumphalism after Waterloo and final exile to St Helena, but some prints reflect an ambiguous view of the fallen emperor and doubts about the restoration of the French king Louis XVIII.

Directly upon returning to Antwerp after his journey to Italy in 1627, Anton van Dyck embarked on a set of 18 etchings in his own hand, which formed the basis for his well-known portrait series 'Iconography'. It is very likely that he was inspired by Ottavio Leoni, one of the leading portraitists in Rome, who was working at the time on a series of portrait engravings of famous personalities. Van Dyck's project soon evolved into an artistically ambitious business idea that could only be successfully implemented with the aid of the best engravers of the city of Antwerp. The series went on to be published by numerous publishers well after Van Dyck's death.

The portrait prints, mostly of living, well-known politicians, generals, scholars, and artists were initially sold as loose sheets, but were subsequently also issued in bound form, in numerous editions from the middle of the seventeenth century onwards. Using the Kupferstichkabinett's own impressive collection of Van Dyck prints, the exhibition 'Spitting Images: Van Dyck and the Portrait Print' seeks to illustrate the various sources of inspiration, work processes, and evolution of the ambitious and creatively challenging endeavour. The portraits are especially captivating for their mimetic quality, their variety, and masterful execution.

The first works of Japanese art to enter the collection of the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science, and Art—which eventually became LACMA in April 1965—were a large group of woodblock prints acquired in 1916, three years after the museum opened. Today, the museum’s permanent collection of Japanese art reflects the interests of a group of individuals in Southern California who came to appreciate Japanese art and culture over the course of the 20th century, particularly in the post-WWII decades.

As part of LACMA’s commitment to Japanese art, the museum made significant artwork purchases in addition to acquiring large gifts of inrō, traditional and contemporary prints, ceramics, and netsuke. Moreover, in the 1980s the museum constructed a building exclusively for the display of Japanese art, and in the early 90s a separate department for Japanese art was established.

Japanese Paintings and Prints: Celebrating LACMA’s 50th Anniversary commemorates the museum’s 50th year as well as the individuals and groups who have shaped the museum’s collections of Japanese paintings and prints. Included are gifts from private collectors, works purchased through the generosity of individual donors, and objects acquired through the support of various museum groups.

After seeing Theodore Roussel’s watercolor The Thames Embankment, Chelsea at a London gallery in 1885, the already well-established James McNeill Whistler requested an introduction to the younger artist. Their meeting sparked more than a decade of professional collaboration that included side-by-side working sessions and camaraderie in both public and private settings. As a result of this communal creativity, Whistler, Roussel, and their artistic circle made remarkable technical and aesthetic developments in lithography and color etching. This exhibition—built around the Art Institute’s exceptional holdings of works on paper by Whistler and a recent major gift of works by Roussel—offers a new perspective on this artistic network and the resulting innovation through 175 objects, including etchings, lithographs, drawings, paintings, and artist-designed frames.

Displayed throughout the Jean and Steven Goldman Prints and Drawings Galleries in the Richard and Mary L. Gray Wing, the exhibition demonstrates the creative impact of the group’s shared network of models, studio assistants, poets, and critics. Related works by various members of this network—from the museum’s permanent collection as well as private collections and the Terra Foundation for American Art—are enhanced and given context by the inclusion of correspondence, historical ephemera, and surviving etching plates, presenting a full picture of the creative exchange and invention that characterized this 19th-century artistic community.

Accompanying the exhibition is an interactive digital component, available both in the galleries and also on the Art Institute’s website, which gives visitors the opportunity to explore the extent of interconnection among the members of Whistler and Roussel’s network. Each artist is represented by a portrait image, a brief biography, and a list of related works, while different layers of the interface illustrate how various members of the network were connected through professional, familial, or other social relationships. A digital publication—aimed at Whistler enthusiasts, students of 19th-century art, and those more broadly interested in the history of artistic collaboration—provides additional insight into the exhibition.

This innovative collaboration between the Department of Ancient and Byzantine Art and the Department of Prints and Drawings examines Renaissance and Baroque printmakers’ direct responses to Classical antiquity through the figure of Dionysos, the ancient Greek god of wine and theater. Installed in the Mary and Michael Jaharis Galleries of Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Art, this exhibition juxtaposes ancient sculpture with prints from the 15th through the 18th century with nearly 100 objects—pieces from the permanent collection, new loans of ancient art, and recently acquired works on paper.

Dionysos—known as Bacchus to the Romans—cavorted with an entourage of satyrs, the god Pan, and frenzied maenads, female followers of the god. All these devotees represented the untamed and hedonistic desires of humanity, which were unleashed by the intoxicating elixir of wine. Because performance was a part of the early Greek festivals of Dionysos, he also became known as the patron god of theater, an aspect of the deity that is less well known today. In ancient art, Dionysos could take many forms, from a graceful youth to a bearded mature man. During the Renaissance and Baroque periods, the time of early printmaking, interest in antiquity—especially Dionysos—flourished. Ancient sculptures depicting the god and his raucous retinue inspired artists to find new ways to transform age-old Dionysian subjects into prints and drawings that would appeal to their own contemporary audiences.

Anchoring the exhibition are Greek and Roman sculptures depicting Dionysos and his wild followers along with vessels used in ritual drinking parties and festivals honoring the god of wine and theater. Their printed counterparts are masterpieces from the Italian Renaissance to the French Rococo, including notably Andrea Mantegna’s Bacchanal with a Wine Vat, a 15th-century Italian engraving with striking visual similarity to the bronze Statue of Young Dionysos (a current long-term loan to the museum). Bringing together this rich selection of works, separated by as many as 1,500 years, this exhibition offers new, enticing insights into the art of Classical antiquity and its later revivals.

This exhibition-the first at the Gallery dedicated to James Abbott McNeill Whistler-examines one of the most celebrated artists of the 19th century through the lens of three of his earliest and most innovative sets of etchings, the so-called French, Thames, and Venice Sets. Each set is representative of an important period in Whistler’s life: as a student in Paris, absorbing the lessons of his Realist contemporaries and the Old Masters; as an emerging artist in London, forging a name for himself as an etcher; and as a well-known artist and teacher in Venice.