In this collection of essays, eight contemporary scholars examine the rich diversity in the subject, style, and geography of printmaking from 1913-1947, a singular period of artistic creation. Also, three distinguished printmakers, who were active during the 1930s and 1940s, share their recollections of those decades, offering rare, firsthand accounts of the political, social,and cultural elements that influenced the artists and their work. David Tatham has chosen two watershed events, the Armory Show of 1913 and the important Brooklyn Museum exhibition of 1947, as the temporal bookends for this collection. Recognizing this era as wholly distinct from what had gone before and what was to come after it in graphic arts, the volume’s contributors illuminate the period’s spirited and vital debate about style, content, and the role of prints in society. Offering fresh assessments and newly understood historical contexts, the essays bring well-deserved attention to artists whose work has often been neglected, while it reexamines the works of well-known artists. This volume represents an important contribution to the study of printmaking by illustrating the way in which historical and contemporary graphic arts occupy a vital and central presence in the culture of our times.

Outstanding Academic Title, Choice, 2015 Winner, Ewell Newman Award of the American Historical Print Collectors Society, 2016 In 1849 the Smithsonian purchased the Marsh Collection of European engravings. Not only the first collection of any kind to be acquired by the new Institution, it was also the first public print collection in the nation, and it presented an important symbol of cultural authority. The prints formed part of the library of Vermont Congressman George Perkins Marsh (1801-1882), a member of the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents. The uncertainty of the Smithsonian's mission in the early years complicated its motivation for purchasing the collection, especially given Marsh’s position as a Regent in financial difficulty. After a serious fire in 1865, portions of the collection were deposited at the Library of Congress and the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Efforts to reclaim it began in the 1880s, as a new generation of Smithsonian staff expanded the National Museum, but they achieved only mixed success. Through the story of the Marsh Collection, the book explores the cultural values attributed to prints in the 19th century, including their prominent role in expositions and their influence on visual culture at a time when collecting styles were moving from an individual’s private contemplation of artworks to wider public venues of exposition in museums and reception by multiple audiences. The history of this first Smithsonian collection enlivens an important stage in the development of American cultural identity and in the formation of the Smithsonian as a national institution.