Past Exhibitions

Master Printmakers: 1920-1940 Selections from the Collection

January 10 - July 3, 2016

Woodruff Works on Paper Gallery

The years following World War I through the Great Depression saw a flowering of printmaking in America as artists explored the richness of the medium in unprecedented numbers. Etchings, lithographs, and wood engravings by 17 leading printmakers of the time will be on view in the Woodruff Works on Paper Gallery beginning January 10. Their work, largely figurative in style, examined and often celebrated the many dimensions of American life. The exhibition will present depictions of urban life, small town and rural life, landscapes, architecture, and portraits. Prints by Thomas Hart Benton, Martin Lewis, Lamar Baker, Louis Lozowick, Kalman Kubinyi, Isabel Bishop John Taylor Arms, Helen Greene Blumenschein, and John Sloan are among those that will be on view. During the period, the development of print subscription organizations such as the Associated American Artists (founded 1934) and the Print Club of Cleveland (founded 1919), as well as the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration, made it possible not only for artists to support themselves through the sale of prints, but also for middle-class Americans to collect original works of art at affordable prices, factors that contributed to making the interwar years one of the nation’s greatest periods of printmaking.