Serial Printmaking Show Matches the World Series, Kind Of

A Museum with 60,000 Historic Prints Puts Some of its Best into Daylight

BALTIMORE—In the sports world we have the World Series, and in the visual arts we have the print series.

            The excitement of these two kinds of series may not compare exactly, of course. But the skill of the printmaker—the producer of etchings, engravings, lithographs, and screen prints—can often be more impressive than that of a pitcher, fielder, or batter at the plate.

            That skill is currently being demonstrated in the “Print by Print” exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art, which is a national treasure trove of “works on paper.” With 60,000 prints in its archives, the museum rightly calls itself a “comprehensive resource for the study of Western printmaking.” Through March, the BMA has pulled out a diverse sampling of its collection to exhibit 29 series of prints, totaling more than 350 items in black or colored ink. They are done by a coterie of top names in art over the past 500 years. The display ranges from Albrecht Dürer and William Hogarth, for example, to Pablo Picasso, Sonia Delaunay, Roy Lichtenstein, and a sampling of contemporary artists.

            The key theme here is "series": not just one print, but a group of different prints by an artist that go together as a single theme or technique. At this BMA world series, there is no grandstand cheering, no screaming at the umpire. The gallery lights are dimmed, since inks on papers can rapidly deteriorate under strong lighting. To protect the more antique works, the exhibit will run for an optimum of five months, then reach a safety limit, after which the prints will go back into dark, dry, and cool storage.

            While print exhibits are not unusual, they typically are smallish, specialized in appeal, or put up as side attractions to block-buster shows. By contrast, “Print by Print” shows what can be done to immerse visitors in an entire world of prints.

            The serial print (usually meaning a story-like series) developed along with the printing press (1450). They first illustrated religious books and then secular tales. As illustrated by the BMA exhibit, not only professional printer-publishers turned to this technology, but so did painters, who as draftsmen wanted to explore one idea, or technique, in a series of different prints that all went together.

            The number in a series can vary dramatically. At the BMA, the Picasso example is a two-part comic-strip-like etching, “The Dream and Lie of Franco (1937),” a protest against the Spanish general. In the same decade, the Cubist designer Sonia Delaunay produced 40 color prints by stencil, producing a volume of examples for fabric or wallpaper design.

            Some of the series are by now well known, while others will always seem like precious re-discoveries. Who has not seen Albrecht Dürer’s 16 woodcuts (1490s) on “The Apocalypse,” which depicts events from the Book of Revelation?

            “He was an enormous influence on printmaking,” a BMA docent told one tour group.

            Still, even Dürer has been matched or outstripped. One example is the 31 refined etchings by the Italian artist Canaletto, “Views, Some Based on Real Places, Some Imagined.” For atmosphere, another Italian feat is the 16-etching series of “Imaginary Prisons” by Battista Piranesi (1761). These large prints offer a journey through fantastical and gothic architectural interiors, vast stone labyrinths.

            One wonders how these skilled craftsmen kept a steady hand, let alone the patience—a question that arises often when looking at engravings and mezzotints that seem to have the resolution of a photograph. Such is the case with Englishman John Martin’s 24 mezzotints of “Milton’s Paradise Lost” (1820s) and the Flemish artist Hans Collaert’s 10 engravings of “Design for Pendants” (1581). Not that past engravers have anything on the present, as illustrated by the unfailingly steady hand of Andrew Raftery in “Open House: Five Engraved Scenes” (2008).

           Three things seem to happen when in the presence of such a rich variety of serial prints. You first must decide whether to spend your time up close marveling at the detail, or standing back to obtain a broader effect. While many print series work both ways, others seem to demand one or the other, as in the case of needing to stand back to enjoy the large screen prints of American artists Ed Ruscha, Sherrie Levine, and Lichtenstein.

            Second, looking at prints is a search for clues and hints besides the main story, for often the artist has put in accessory details designed to delight, humor, or surprise. The classic William Hogarth print series in this exhibit, “A Harlot’s Progress” (1733), is a morality tale filled with quips and innuendo in nearly every sundry item included in a scene.

           Finally, prints offer a chance to marvel at the craftsman’s skill, whether it is the tightest, finest line, or the just-so smudging of crayon and ink in a lithograph.

            Dürer knew what skill was about: training and practice made perfect. Still today, as in Dürer’s, the printmaker is often consigned to being the blue-collar artist, not exactly the sports star of the art set. One time Dürer tried to compensate for this copper plate ceiling. In a self portrait, he showed himself wearing gloves, the sign in his day of being a gentleman (in addition to a mere printmaker).