Degree PhD in Warburg Institute
University of London, 2005
Professional Affiliation Associate Professor, University of Western Australia
Research/Current Projects Johann Neudörffer’s Writing Manuals and the Graphic Arts in Renaissance Germany Rather than shying away from printmaking, a medium whose introduction in the fifteenth century had severely curtailed the role of professional scribes, the Nuremberg writing master Johann Neudörffer the Elder (1497-1563) delighted in exploring the technical possibilities of disseminating his script through print. In addition to designing typefaces for letterpress printing, Neudörffer produced printed writing manuals for much of his career. His etched Gute Ordnung (Good Order, 1543-1550s) is particularly notable for its experimental play with materials and technique. Neudörffer’s ingenious sequencing of etchings and counterproofs provides not only step-by-step guides on how to form lines into letters, but also lays open that his seemingly handmade marks are the results of mechanical production. Neudörffer’s text-images share this self-aware attention to linear aesthetics and process with drawings and etchings by contemporaries including Albrecht Altdorfer and Albrecht Dürer. In addition, Neudörffer’s pedagogy shaped how contemporary viewers read lines. His manual provides insights into how Neudörffer’s readers became sophisticated consumers of linear beauty in figurative art. Casting a period eye on formal and technical aspects of the Gute Ordnung reveals the manual as a key work in the history of sixteenth-century printmaking and viewing. I have published on print censorship, print collecting, history of the book and the social history of prints. For further details, please see https://uwa.academia.edu/SusanneMeurer or https://research-repository.uwa.edu.au/en/persons/susanne-meurer    
Time Period Interests Renassiance, Baroque, Contemporary
Area Interests Western Europe, Australia
Media Interests Book arts, Digital printmaking, Engraving, Etching, Relief printing
CV
Susanne Meurer. "‘It all Turns to Shit’ – The Land of Cockaigne in Sixteenth-Century German Woodcuts." In Indecent Bodies in Early Modern Visual Culture, edited by Fabian Jonietz, Mandy Richter, Alison G. Stewart. Amsterdam: AUP, 2022: 229-55.