Prints & Drawings

The Victorian era marked a resurgence of popularity of Arthurian legends. The first publication of the Alfred Tennyson’s The Idylls of the King sold incredibly well – a pattern that unfortunately did not continue with the edition illustrated by Gustave Doré – representing a Victorian fondness for stories of growth and change in a time [...]

Jean Kubota Cassill is a printmaker who worked primarily in the mid- to late twentieth century. printmaking. She studied printmaking at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she encountered Arthur Frick, a professor of drawing. It is unknown as to how or why he received this artwork, but it may be that Cassill was a student [...]

Ball Dress is a print initially published in John Bell’s British women’s fashion magazine, La Belle Assemblée. This fashion plate pictures a wealthy, white, assumed-to-be married woman wearing a luxurious dress inspired by French fashion. It was created by “Mrs. Bell,” or Mary Ann Walker Bell, editor of the fashion section between 1810 and 1820 [...]

Käthe Kollwitz is considered one of the most notable European printmakers of the twentieth century. As a German artist who lived and worked during both world wars, Kollwitz’s artwork frequently features motifs of grief and loss. Tod Und Frau depicts a nude woman being trapped by Death as a child desperately reaches for her. Kollwitz [...]

Jean-Pierre Redouté was born in Saint-Hubért in what is today Belgium. He came from a family of painters and decorators, and left home at age 13 to pursue painting. In 1782 he made his way to Paris, where he was introduced to many aristocrats. In Paris he moved toward botanical illustration and became official draughtsman [...]

James Whistler was born in Connecticut, but spent most of his life in Europe. His father was a railroad engineer, and when Whistler was eleven the family relocated to St. Petersburg, which Whistler claimed as his birthplace during a libel trial in his later life. Whistler’s first job was drafting the United States coastline for [...]

The Christian faith was first introduced into Japan in the sixteenth century by Jesuit and later by Franciscan missionaries. By the end of that century, there were probably about 300,000 baptized believers in Japan. This strong beginning met reverses though, brought about by rivalries between different groups of missionaries and political intrigues by the Spanish [...]

Warrington Colescott is an American artist best known for his satirical etchings. Colescott studied painting while at University but discovered his love of printmaking in the 1960s. This print is a part of The Great Society series, which is aimed at former president Lyndon B. Johnson’s grandiose political agenda of the same name. Launched in [...]

Rembrandt van Rijn is generally considered one of the finest painters and printmakers in Europe and the most important in Dutch History. He is most remembered for his intimate self-portraits and biblical scenes. Although there are prints from nearly every year of Rembrandt’s artistic career, this etching was likely created in the 1630s when he [...]

Lazarus is the subject of a prominent miracle in the life of Jesus from the gospel of John. Lazarus was said to be a follower of Jesus who lived in the town of Bethany, near Jerusalem. When Jesus arrives in Bethany, he finds that Lazarus is dead and has already been in his tomb for [...]