During my time at the University outside of my time at the museum I have spent a lot of time looking at and studying the art of the late medieval and the early northern Renaissance. The works I’ve spent the most time with are prints, especially those of Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) and his contemporaries. Many of the printmaking techniques these artists used are also listed alongside the prints we had hanging in the Stanley. It occurred to me that I had no real idea how the processes these artists were using worked, and thought that if I didn’t know, many of our visitors might not, either.

To help my understanding, and teach any visitors who might be curious, I set out to explain a variety of printmaking techniques in one self-guided tour.

I started out by researching the most common techniques seen in our galleries, both their processes and histories, and boiling them down to paragraph long explanations. I then spent time adding a glossary to clarify any printmaking vocabulary, and illustrated each technique so that visitors could better understand it.

The prints in our galleries are only able to stay up for a few months at a time due to UV exposure and fragility, but by making this tour about the techniques and not specific prints, it can be used by visitors indefinitely without having to be updated or retired. The tour gives visitors a chance to learn about six different printmaking techniques, able to learn about both the prints in the galleries and in storage!

I’m very excited about how this tour came out, and hope you get a chance to use it! If you are not able to get a physical copy, the entire tour is in the photo gallery of this post.