Impressions: 500 Years of Printmaking

Pietro Santo Bartoli, Naval Battle Scenes, Engraving, 1635-1700

The O’Kane Gallery is honored to host a special selection of artworks from the collection of The Printing Museum in Houston, Texas. The exhibit features a broad sample of printing techniques including woodcuts, engravings, etchings, lithographs, and screen prints created over a span of
500 years from 16th and 17th century genre scenes and religious subjects through six prints by the renowned Houston artist and Texas Southern University educator John Biggers. Other examples include prints by Lucas van Leyden, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Victor Vasarely, and
Houston’s Charles Criner. 

Founded in 1982 by printmakers Raoul Beasley, Vernon P. Hearn, Don Piercy, and J. V. Burnham, The Printing Museum is dedicated to  reserving quality prints and the technologies used to create them. The collection holds prints of historical significance as well as some finearts facsimiles, including one of the Gutenberg Bible. The museum seeks to serve as a center for community engagement offering hands-on opportunities for self-expression.

The exhibit foreshadows The Printing Museum’s move to its new location in Houston’s Midtown planned for later this spring. The variety of works additionally supports the beginning of printmaking now offered as a studio course on the UHD campus.