Print Room Talks: Relief: Woodcut, Wood Engraving, and Linocut

For the 2022-23 series of Print Room Talks, we will go back to the basics. Printmaking is most simply defined as the process by which an image is transferred from one surface to another, but for many museum visitors, specific printmaking terms and techniques remain a mystery. For example, what is the difference between an engraving and etching? This series will discuss the most commonly used printmaking techniques up-close through the work of permanent collection artists. Although often developed for commercial purposes, artists from Albrecht Dürer to Andy Warhol and beyond have harnessed printmaking for its unique expressive properties.

We will begin with relief prints, which are familiar to many as rubber stamps, and most commonly use linoleum or wood as a block. Relief printmaking has the oldest history, revolutionizing the spread of information through printed books in the 15th century. Woodcuts by German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer will be contrasted with contemporary examples.