Explore the renaissance of etching from the late 1850s through the turn of the
century in Europe and the United States with the new Cincinnati Art Museum
exhibition The Etching Revival from
Daubigny to Twachtman, on view February 13–May 8, 2016.
Featuring
more than 100 monochromatic prints from dozens of artists, the exhibition also includes
a wood etching press from the early 1900s, along with plates and tools used to
create the etchings. Etching is one of the first original art movements in
America and it played an important role in developing the public’s aesthetic
appreciation of the graphic arts.
The Process
Etching
involves using a substance to bite into metal surfaces with acid in order to
create a design. Etching was attractive to painters because it allowed them to
capture the fleeting effects of nature rapidly with freedom and spontaneity. The
process coincided with artist’s desire to work directly from nature, to sketch en plein air to create landscapes and
seascapes.
Ties to Cincinnati
Cincinnatians
featured in the exhibition include early etching practitioners Mary Louise
McLaughlin, Henry Farny, Lewis Henry Meakin and John Twachtman. Working abroad
in the 1880s, Covington, Ky.-born Frank Duveneck and his students, known as the
"Duveneck Boys,” pursued etching in Venice with James McNeill Whistler. Some
of Duveneck’s gifts will also be featured in the exhibition.
The Cincinnati Etching Club, the second etching
club in America after the New York Etching Club, was founded in 1879 and
actually gifted a group of prints to the Art Museum in 1882. These etchings were
among the first pieces of art acquired by the Art Museum.
The Artists and History
The
American Etching Revival was inspired by the earlier French and British
mid-century etching revivals by Barbizon artists, such as Charles François
Daubigny, Camille Corot, and Jean-François Millet, who made preparatory
drawings for etchings out of doors to capture natural landscapes and
romanticized scenes of peasants at work at the time of the industrial
revolution.
The
etchings of Whistler and Sir Francis Seymour Haden influenced the next
generation of artists. In 1862, the Society
of Etchers organization in France inspired a new generation of independent
etchers including Edouard Manet, Charles Meryon, and Maxine Lalanne, and
Impressionists Edgar Degas and Mary Cassatt. The success of this movement was
fostered in both Europe and America by publishers, artistic printers and
critics.
“It’s
fascinating to look at these etchings and to learn the history behind them,”
said Cincinnati Art Museum Curator of Prints Kristin Spangenberg. “They
showcase an emerging art form and also the very beginnings of the Cincinnati
Art Museum’s permanent collection.”
The Etching Revival from Daubigny to Twachtman coincides with the
Taft Museum of Art’s exhibition, Daubigny, Monet, Van Gogh: Impressions of Landscape (February 20 – May
29, 2016).
Images from the exhibition:
Charles-François
Daubigny
French,
1817-1878
Le
Gué, 1965
etching
Cincinnati
Art Museum, Gift of Herbert Greer French
1940.174
Mary
Louise McLaughlin
American,
1847-1939
Beeches
in Burnet Woods, 1883
etching
Cincinnati
Art Museum, Gift of The Cincinnati Etching Club
1882.257
Charles
Meryon
(France,
1821-1868)
The
Admiralty, Paris, 1865
Etching
(fifth state)
Cincinnati
Art Museum, Bequest of Herbert Greer French
1943.625
John
Henry Twachtmann
American,
1853-1902
Cincinnati
Landscape, 1879-80
etching
Cincinnati
Art Museum, Gift of Frank Duveneck
1917.453
John
Henry Twachtman
United
States, 1853-1902
Snow
Landscape, 1879-83
etching
Cincinnati
Art Museum, The Albert P. Strietmann Collection and various funds
1983.24
