In this six-part lecture series titled Contact: Art and the Pull of Print, Roberts focuses on printmaking as an art of physical contact, involving transfer under pressure between surfaces—a direct touch that can evoke multiple forms of intimacy. And yet it is simultaneously an art of estrangement: it requires the deferral, displacement, and distribution of artistic agency, and it trades in reversal and inversion.

In this second lecture, “Reversal,” premiered on the National Gallery’s website on May 2, 2021, Roberts explores how every predigital print process produces some form of reversal—the entire history of printing is based on the reversal of information. Making prints thus requires a certain backwardness; the capacity to imagine things from the other side is compulsory. This is especially true for artists using text. An attunement to reversibility allows for unique ways of exploring communication and confrontation in bodily space.

For more information and to access the lecture upon release please visit the external link below.

A two-day online conference: 20-21 May 2021: 1.30pm - 6.00pm (UK time / BST), 8:30am - 1:00 pm (EDT)

The relationship between disegno and Renaissance Venetian art has historically been a problematic one, with emphasis instead being placed on the Venetian predilection for colore. Scholarship of the past few decades has, however, challenged this perspective and drawn attention to the importance of the Venetian disegno. This digital conference brings together some of the most novel research in this field in order to establish a new frontier.

Disegno is applied in its multifaceted nature to encompass the physical act of drawing, the tangible drawn object, and the role of design in artistic practice. Papers will bear witness to this mutability by addressing topics including printmaking, workshop reuse, under-drawings and the adoption of diverse graphic media by Venetian artists active between circa 1430 and 1620. The term ‘Venetian’ is here taken in its broadest sense to encompass both Venice and its mainland territories. Also under consideration are artists who relocated to the Veneto and their contribution to the region’s artisanal culture. In its broad chronological, geographical and technical scope, this conference will reinvigorate consideration of what defines both Venetian art and the Venetian disegno.

For more information and to register please visit the external link below.

Grab your binoculars and join us on Friday, April 30, 2021, at 2:00 p.m. for an hour of virtual birding, as we turn the pages of John James Audubon’s gigantic, hand painted Birds of America (1827-38). Rarely does the public have the opportunity to see this amazing four-volume work and when they do, it is usually only one plate through a sealed case. As we have done for our students, we will page through multiple volumes so you can experience the colossal scale of Audubon’s birds, painted life-size and then transferred to copper plates for the printing and painting of the published ‘double-elephant’ volumes. We will compare Audubon's 'guide' to current pocket guides and birding apps.

From Brayer to Brush: Hand-Colored Prints by Jim Sherraden will feature the artist's woodcut quilt pieces – "I carve my own woodblocks and print them and then cut that paper, mixing and matching, into quilt/tile/textile-like patterns either traditional or those of my own design. Watercolor is applied after the final assembly." Sherraden grew up in Salina, Kansas, then went to Nashville in 1977. There he completed his university studies, which included a strong education in printmaking. From this foundation, he managed the letterpress print shop Hatch Show Print, beginning in 1984 until 2013, overseeing its transition from a cultural survivor to a widely recognized graphic design icon and destination for letterpress enthusiasts. In 2005, Sherraden returned to carving his own woodcuts, continuing the work that first led him to Hatch Show Print over 30 years earlier. Six years later he began creating wooden quilts and then paper quilts the subsequent year. For these works of art, the artist readily cuts up his own printed pieces, mixing and matching them on single and multi-dimensional surfaces. There are 38 of Sherraden's intricate but large-scale collaged works on display, plus a variety of small woodcut prints are also available for sale.

The lecture will be devoted to the phenomenon of 19th-century Rembrandt prints collecting in Russia, discussing three major figures – geographer, man of law and an amateur etcher, all of them - from the Russian hereditary gentry. All three of them were born in old Russian capital, the city of Moscow, all three spent a lot of time abroad but the nature of their collecting seems to be quite different. Senators Petr Semenov-Tjan-Shansky (1827-1914) and Dmitry Rovinsky (1824-1895) being on the state service from their early years, are famous as an active participants of the Great Reforms of Alexander II (1861-1864), acting in the process of liberation of peasants from serfdom, elimination of legal corporal punishment and establishing an institution of jury trial in the absolute monarchy of Russia. The third hero of the lecture, hereditary collector Nikolai Mosolov (1846-1914), who multiplied the collection of his father and grandfather, was a freelancer etcher, Rembrandt fan, who could allow himself to devote all his life to the art of printmaking. Their collection had a very different fate. The ones created by Rovinsky and Mosolov (today, respectively, in the Hermitage at St Petersburg and in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow by the will of collectors) are preserved in relative intact. Rembrandts (as well as Durers) from Semenov collection, which was sold by him directly to the Imperial Hermitage (1910), were mostly sold by the Soviet government in late 1920s. How these three assembled their collections in Russia and in Europe, how they used them and how they studied them will be the main topic of talk on April 22, 2021.

To receive a Zoom Webinar link, please register here:
https://princeton.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_7Yehds2rRQCdMLH6Fhe8jQ

The material and spatial changes of the printmaking process and their social and conceptual implications will be discussed in this lecture series.

A print is an image transferred, under pressure, between two surfaces in direct physical contact. Every print is the record of a contact event: pressure followed by release. This makes print an especially subtle medium for exploring alternative models of the sensory image and for working through the social continuum of touch, from intimacy to violence.

Each lecture will premiere at the date and time listed on the Contact: Art and the Pull of Print web page and will remain there for public viewing. These programs are free and open to the public and designed for anyone interested in art and art history. No art or art history background is required. Ages 18 and up. No registration is required.

For more information and to access the lecture upon release please visit the external link below.

The ancient world, specifically Mesoamerica, has been a source of inspiration for Chicanx and other artists of Mexican descent. Join us for a virtual conversation that examines how Chicanx artists incorporate ancient Mesoamerican iconography with contemporary political efforts as an act of honoring and reinforcing Indigenous histories. Panelists include internationally renowned Mexican-born printmaker Enrique Chagoya, who creates prints conceptually fusing Mesoamerican mythology, western religious iconography, and American popular culture; currently, he is a professor in the department of art and art history at Stanford University. Chagoya is joined by Yreina D. Cervántez, a Xicana feminist artist based in Los Angeles. Her multimedia works incorporate ancient spirituality and feminist histories as a commentary on Chicana political consciousness. Cervántez is a professor emeritus in the department of Chicana/o studies at California State University at Northridge. This virtual conversation is moderated by Claudia Zapata, curatorial assistant for Latinx art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Zapata is also a contributor to the ¡Printing the Revolution! Catalogue.

This program is the fourth in a five-part online conversation series that examines Chicanx graphics and how artists have used printmaking to debate larger social causes, reflect on issues of their time, and build community. Hear from artists, scholars, and activists about the Chicanx graphics movement, from civil rights–era prints to today’s digital landscape.

For more information and to register please visit the external link below.

In conjunction with the major exhibition, "After Michelangelo, Past Picasso: Leo Steinberg’s Library of Prints," art historians will assess Steinberg’s scholarship and impact on the study of prints from the Renaissance to the contemporary period.

11:00 – 11:05 AM
Opening Remarks
Carter Foster, Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs and Curator of Prints and Drawings, Blanton Museum of Art

11:05 AM– 12:30 PM
The Circulating Lifeblood of Ideas: Leo Steinberg’s Library of Prints
Holly Borham, Associate Curator of Prints and Drawings, Blanton Museum of Art

Crushing It: The Flatbed Picture Plane and the Pressure of Print
Jennifer Roberts, Elizabeth Cary Agassiz Professor of the Humanities, Faculty Director for the Arts, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University

12:30 – 1:00 PM
Break

1:00 PM-2:30 PM
Lines of Fate: Leo Steinberg’s Use of Prints to Interpret Michelangelo’s Work
Bernadine Barnes, Professor of Art History, Wake Forest University

The Sexuality of Virtue in Renaissance Prints
Patricia Emison, Professor of Art and Art History, University of New Hampshire

Veronica Peselmann, University of Southern California/University of Bielefeld 
"Welcome and Introduction" 

Anne Royston, Rochester Institute of Technology 
“Among the Threads in Jen Bervin’s Silk Poems” 

Zanna Gilbert, Getty Research Institute 
“The Inside is the Outside: The Ontology of the Object in South American Art & Poetry” 

Jana Dambrogio/Daniel Starza Smith, MIT Cambridge/Kings College London 
“Letterlocking: Communication Security Without Envelopes” 

Chair: Lisa Pon, University of Southern California 

BREAK 

Natalia Lauricella, University of Southern California 
“Crafting the Limited Edition Print in Fin-de-Siècle France” 

Amy Knight Powell, University of Southern California 
“Boxes and Strings” 

Brittany Webb, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts 
“Taking Space: Contemporary Women Artists and the Politics of Scale” 

Chair: Michaela Rife, University of Michigan 

CLOSING REMARKS AND DISCUSSION 

For more information, email Veronica Peselmann at vp_811@usc.edu
Register via Zoom by using the external link below.

On the occasion of Print Club’s 40th Anniversary, this virtual exhibition presents all of the 76 prints, drawings, and photographs— 49 purchased and 27 commissioned—given to the Des Moines Art Center since the Club’s founding. It also presents 22 prints that have been conserved with funds donated by the Print Club.

The 76 Gift and Commissioned Prints are displayed in chronological order of their creation. After, you will see the 22 works from the Permanent Collections that have been conserved, with Print Club’s support.

Beginning in 1982, Print Club has made annual gifts of works of art to the Permanent Collections, ranging from early 16th-century to contemporary prints. With the director and curators, Print Club researches prints for consideration. Some years, the focus is on finding works that fill a gap in the Art Center’s holdings of a particular time period, printmaking technique, historic style, or individual artist. The Club prepares an educational presentation about the proposed prints and then at the Annual Meeting, members vote to select one or more of the prints to donate to the Art Center.

Since the tenth anniversary year, Print Club has commissioned 27 contemporary artists to create prints in editions of 50 to 60 prints. Members have priority before sales are open to the public. Proceeds from the sales support the purchase of Gift Prints, conservation of prints, print exhibitions, and related publications. Available prints can be purchased in The Shop at the Art Center.

For more information and to view the virtual exhibition please visit the external link below.