Sunday, November 8, 2015

Etching Revival

Dear Mrs. Roberts,
                Thank you for email of Monday, November 2. You seemed to be having trouble locating sources to aid your writing about the print revival, specifically the American and British facets, if I remember correctly. I have spent this week searching for sources which I believe you will find quite useful. I chose some general ‘antique print’ websites, as well as some particularly good exhibition records or catalogs to cover a broader range for your work. As you may know, this University offers a PhD in the field of Art History, so we subscribe to a wide variety of academic art journals which you may find helpful in addition to what I have included. I have added brief descriptions of each resource so that you may better determine which will supply the most beneficial information. I hope you find this useful, please do not hesitate to contact me again should you have further questions.

Thank You,
Chandler E. Parker
Art Librarian, XYZ University

This resource is the second phase of a project by the New York Art Resources Consortium called Documenting the Gilded Age: New York City Exhibitions at the Turn of the 20th Century. It is helpful for the brief overview of the etching revival, and its players in the New York Scene, but its most useful features are the wide range of hyperlinks it offers that will take you to various collections and offer high-resolution digital images of many of these etchings and prints. The materials focus on the years between 1875 and 1922, and the records included in the exhibition detail ninety-seven different galleries, clubs, and associations represented on the New York art scene. There are also five additional sources to be found at the bottom of the first page, several of which you may find useful.

This is a review of an exhibition held at Georgetown College two years ago entitled American Women and the Etching Revival: Works on Paper from the Payne Collection. It gives a brief overview of the exhibition, its contents and its features, as well as describing several key works on display. Georgetown College’s archive may have a digitized exhibition catalogue upon request. If you wish to pursue this source further, you can contact Sandy Baird, who is the archives and special collections manager at Georgetown College. I have included her school contact information below.

Sandy Baird – Archives and Special Collection Manager, Georgetown University
sandra_baird@georgetowncollege.edu
(502) 863-8410 – office phone

This is Neil Philip’s blog, Adventures in the Print Trade. This specific post concerns Robert Swain Gifford and the New York Etching Club, which was founded in May 1877. Philips’ blog in its entirety is a source worth exploring, but I thought this post in particular would offer some excellent background into the origins of this New York organization so heavily involved in the American etching revival.

Print Quarterly is a journal which covers the history of prints and printmaking from its inception, through the present day. It is a subscription-based scholarly journal, however this University holds a subscription. A wonderful aspect of their website, however, is that one can click on a particular issue (1-32) and obtain a list of what appeared in that particular issue, including notes and catalogue and book reviews.

Drawings and Prints offers “One of the world’s largest stocks of original prints and drawings from the late fifteenth through the mid-twentieth century”. Here you will find a wealth of information on different artists and styles, as well as old catalogues, past and current exhibitions, and a large number of high quality images of hundreds of prints from the last several centuries.

This is the Met’s biographical page on James McNeill Whistler, who was an influential printmaker in London, as well as being a well-respected painter. You can also find on this page a PDF download of a piece by Nancy Dorfman Pressly from the Paul Mellon Center for British Art and British Studies entitled, Whistler in America: An Album of Early Drawings. It is also worth your time to browse around the Met’s website, as they have a huge number of prints from the Etching Revival, and a lot of other information available that may aid you in your writing.

The American Historical Print Collectors Society was founded in 1975, based out of Farmingdale, New York. They are a non-profit group who encourages the study, collection, and preservation of American prints that are 100 years old or more. They publish a scholarly journal called Imprint twice each year, of which issues can be purchased for a relatively cheap price. The Society also maintains several blogs concerning specific artists or time periods for American prints.

This website is a company that specializing in appraising and selling antique, rare, and decorative prints and maps. They also host several blogs concerning artists or periods in printing history. Derek and Katheryn Nicholls have over thirty years of experience in this field, and they are constantly adding new works for sale. The valuation of the particular prints from the etching revival may be of some use to you here, also which artists are in the highest demand from that period, and what subject matters are the most popular amongst buyers of these prints.

The American Printing History Association is a membership group which encourages the study of the history of printing. They publish a semi-annual journal entitled Printing History, which can be ordered online for a fee. The Association’s website also contains several useful research guides, such as a timeline for the history of printing, the North American Handpress Database, and a list of printer’ and publishers’ marks.


This sale catalogue entitled The Etching Revival in Britain 1850-1950 by Wolseley Fine Arts may prove to be a tremendous reference resource for you, as it is setup one artist at a time, with their included works following. Each listed work also includes a price (in £) and where it was originally published or printed, and where the signature appears if it is signed. 

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