Artists in France during the nineteenth century increasingly turned to printmaking as a form of original expression. They were inspired to explore the artistic possibilities of new mass-printing processes, such as lithography and wood engraving, and they sought to reinvigorate the etching process by developing innovative techniques. Prints by artists such as Félix-Hilaire Buhot, Eugène Delacroix, and Félix Vallotton demonstrate the extensive experimentation that was central to printmaking during this era.

The twenty-five prints in Experimental Ink are drawn from a group of works that local collector Ethel K. Hockerman and her charitable trust donated to the Museum over thirty years. The Hockerman Collection is a testament to the appeal that these experimental prints still have today.

Raphael (1483–1520) was one of the greatest artistic figures working in the Western classical tradition. In celebration of the 500th anniversary of his death, the Gallery presents 25 prints and drawings in an intimate installation. The works will illustrate how the combination of artistic traditions, wide range, and immediate influence of Raphael’s art shaped the standard of aesthetic excellence for later artists, connoisseurs, and scholars. The exhibition features four drawings by Raphael: the sheet from which the design of his painting Saint George and the Dragon (c. 1506, National Gallery of Art) was transferred; the cartoon for the so-called Belle Jardinière (La Vierge à l'Enfant avec le petit saint Jean-Baptiste, 1507 or 1508, Louvre Museum, Paris); a detailed representation of the prophets Hosea and Jonah; and a well-known study for part of the frescoes in the church of Santa Maria della Pace in Rome. Nine drawings by his closest collaborators and followers—Giulio Romano, Polidoro da Caravaggio, and Perino del Vaga—are also on view.

The exhibition includes 10 engravings, as well as a chiaroscuro woodcut, by the earliest interpreters of Raphael’s designs: Marcantonio Raimondi and his followers Agostino Veneziano and Marco Dente da Ravenna as well as Ugo da Carpi. The Gallery’s five paintings by Raphael—the largest and most important group outside a few European collections—represent the central decade of his activity and will be on view on the main floor of the West Building to complement this exhibition.

“I believe in the alchemy of the word, the iconography of the text, the labyrinth of the book.”—Harriet Bart

Harriet Bart is a nationally prominent conceptual artist whose multidisciplinary work explores themes of commemoration, remembrance, and loss. Books and language lie at the heart of her practice, one informed by an abiding fascination with the personal and collective expression of memory. Bart is a self-described cultural storyteller who draws on historical events, literary sources, and other narratives to shape meaning and engender empathy for her subjects. Conceptually rich and aesthetically refined, her books and works on paper are highly original evocations of the human condition. This solo presentation of features more than 25 artist books, drawings, collages, editioned prints, and related objects selected from Mia’s permanent collection and the artist’s private holdings.

“Harriet Bart: Artist Books + Works on Paper” was organized by Mia associate curator Dennis Michael Jon in collaboration with the artist. It is presented in conjunction with the Weisman Art Museum’s concurrent retrospective exhibition “Harriet Bart: Abracadabra and Other Forms of Protection.”

Indelible Ink features prints created between 1993-2019 in a variety of media — lithography, screenprinting, monoprinting, and letterpress. These prints create dialogue through critiques of mainstream North American settler culture, refracted through a diverse array of imagery drawn from personal and popular references.

The checklist is multigenerational, including well established artists like Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, mid-career artists like Marie Watt and Dyani Whitehawk, and relative new comers like Sara Siestreem. Indelible Ink explores collaboration as a generative artmaking process and a way of life. The exhibition explores themes gathered from interviews with the exhibition’s artists, as well as the printmakers with whom they have collaborated. In their interviews, the artists discuss the benefits and challenges of working with collaborating printers in the studio, which is typically a solitary place. Conversely, the publishers and printers featured in Indelible Ink shed light on the unique technical challenges of their medium, as well as their philosophy of collaboration, the artist selection process, and the complexities of collaborative art-making relationships.

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.

Outlaw Ink: Hück and Hogarth consists of everything from “hillbillies doing bad stuff” in Middle America to the urban dystopia of 18th century England as depicted through prints by American printmaker Tom Hück accompanied by one of his major influences, 18th century English printmaker William Hogarth. Hück has also been chosen as the spring 2020 Myers residency artist. In addition to exhibiting his work, he will spend a week in February with students and during that time will produce a new print edition.

Long before comics and graphic novels, artists used pictures to tell stories. This exhibition presents six series of etchings, lithographs, and woodcuts that do just that. The tales told include the Shakespearean tragedies Hamlet and King Lear, the biblical Parable of the Prodigal Son, and a purely pictorial dream sequence featuring a glove. Two more series illustrate sets of abstract principles—the Christian notion of the seven deadly sins and a German legal code from the 1400s.

The six series are from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Stylistically they range from the emotion- and action-packed Romanticism of Eugène Delacroix to the highly detailed realism of James Tissot to the gestural near-abstraction of Oskar Kokoschka.

Over the history of printmaking, artists developed a variety of techniques, each of which has its own visible characteristics and expressive qualities. For example, lithography is closest to freehand drawing; etching lends itself to delicate, detailed work; and woodcuts often look rough and crude. Even a glance at the six series exhibited here reveals these distinct differences.

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839–1892) is considered the last major artist of classical Japanese woodblock prints, known as ukiyo-e. His career spanned Japan’s transformation from feudal backwater to modern nation-state, largely during the Meiji period (1868–1912), when he was the undisputed leader in his field. In 2017, the Minneapolis Institute of Art acquired nearly 300 prints, drawings, and books by Yoshitoshi, which were collected by Edmond Freis over 35 years. These outstanding objects are of the highest quality and include all of Yoshitoshi’s masterworks.

This exhibition aims to highlight how Yoshitoshi worked, his skill as a draftsman, and how he responded to changing tastes between around 1860 and 1890. Some of the published prints will be shown directly beside his original sketches. This will be the first time that Yoshitoshi’s curious and largest-known painting—an image of six great generals of the East and West, including George Washington and Napoleon III—has been exhibited anywhere.

Chicano/a/x Printmaking: Making Prints and Making History – 50 Years of Art Activism is a multi-site exhibition celebrating the 50th anniversary of the SDSU Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies. Born in 1969 out of community struggle and a spirit of revolution that is ongoing, the Department’s activist stance is reflected in the exhibition. Featuring important historical and contemporary examples of printed works on paper, the exhibition highlights printmaking as one of the oldest, most enduring, and widely used processes for Chicano/a/x artists working from the 1940s to today.

Chicano/a/x Printmaking presents a robust selection of linoleum cuts, monoprints, screenprints, and woodblock prints that manifest community concerns and dreams, pride and cultural affirmation, and the use of art as an agent for change. Produced by individual artists and collectives, the artworks provoke discussion on relevant and urgent issues. For example, topics addressed in the exhibition include mass migration, border walls, family separation, extreme poverty, generalized violence, racism and hate, climate change and environmental deterioration, political polarization, and other critical challenges of contemporary society.

Chinano/a/x Printmaking is drawn largely from the Gilberto Cárdenas and Dolores García Collection of Latino Art. With a distinctive focus on Chicano printmaking, the Collection includes individual works as well as complete portfolios by Chicano artists in its holdings of more than 10,000 objects. Artists and groups in the exhibition include Yreina Cervantes, Rupert Garcia, Diane Gamboa, Ester Hernández, Malaquías Montoya, Victor Ochoa, Self-Help Graphics, and Salvador Roberto Torres, among others.

Chicano/a/x Printmaking: Making Prints and Making History – 50 Years of Art Activism is organized by the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies in collaboration with the SDSU Downtown Gallery. The exhibition and events are sponsored by Ruben Islas, Nadia Gastelum, Adrienne and Juan Vargas, Gilberto Cárdenas, Southwest Airlines, ArtStartArt, the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies, the College of Arts & Letters, the School of Art + Design, the College of Professional Studies and Fine Arts, and Arts Alive SDSU.

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.