Cover image: (Detail) John Sloan, Copyist at the Metropolitan, 1908, etching, 7.3 x 8.8 in. (18.5 x 22.4 cm). Stanley Museum of Art, gift of Alan and Ann January.

On view March 1 - December, 2024, this exhibition features Twelve Prints by Contemporary American Artists, a portfolio recently gifted to the Stanley by collectors Alan and Ann January. 

In 1919, the Weyhe Gallery announced its arrival on the New York art scene. Erhard Weyhe (1882–1972), a German book dealer who emigrated from London to the United States after the outbreak of World War I, founded the gallery. He hired the print scholar Carl Zigrosser (1891–1975) to oversee the publication of a portfolio that would promote the new venture by highlighting twelve acclaimed artists.

Unlike many portfolios of the day, this one was not thematically conceived and showcased a range of techniques: etching, drypoint, woodcut, and lithography, which was still catching on among modern artists. Zigrosser valued the medium as much for its accessibility as its malleability. Prints, he argued, could respond to modernity in ways that rivaled photography. A Year in Print will illuminate the ways this 1919 portfolio reflected socio-political issues of its day and prefigured the artistic innovations of the decades to follow.

A Year in Print is generously supported by Alan and Ann January, The Members Special Exhibition Fund, and The Leola N. Bergmann Print Fund.