The World Writ Small: Early Northern European Prints

June 16 – September 8, 2007

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The diminutive engravings and woodcuts made by northern European artists in the first half of the sixteenth century may not be monumental in scale, but they contributed to nothing less than a revolution in printmaking. This flowering of activity, close on the heels of Johann Gutenberg's invention of printing in Mainz in the 1450s, was centered in Germany and the Low Countries. The dominant figures—Albrecht Dürer, Albrecht Altdorfer, Lucas van Leyden—continued to exert influence on artists even centuries afterward and are still viewed as giants of Western printmaking. With dozens of examples drawn from the Smart Museum's collection, this exhibition gathered together works of immense complexity—created with virtuosic networks of engraved or woodcut lines—in detailed prints, some as small as postage stamps.

Curator: Anne Leonard, Smart Museum Curator and Mellon Program Coordinator.

This exhibition is made possible by the generous support of the Feitler Family Fund.

Left: Hendrick Goltzius, Pietà (Lamentation of the Virgin), 1596, Engraving. Smart Museum of Art, The University of Chicago, Purchase, Paul and Miriam Kirkley Fund for Acquisitions, 2006.99.

Presented in the Joel and Carole Bernstein Gallery for Works on Paper.

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