Arts Department, Special Collections

A Selection of BPL Prints & Drawings Collections

Old Master Prints
Old Master prints form a small but notable part of the Library’s print collection. Included are prints by Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt van Rijn, and Francisco Goya. The inclusion of Old Master prints provides the opportunity to study the history of printmaking from its earliest practice by European artists beginning in the 15th century.

18th and 19th Century British, French, and American Prints
The 18th and 19th centuries in England and France were periods of great social, political, and artistic change. Examples of artists represented from this time period include William Hogarth, Thomas Rowlandson, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Mary Cassatt.

American Artists 1900-1960
The collection contains examples of American life and landscapes depicted by artists such as John Sloan, Reginald Marsh, and George Bellows, Frank Benson, Thomas Nason, Gustave Baumann, Isabel Bishop, and Kyra Markham.

Boston Printmakers
The Library holds collections that represent the development of printmaking from the 19th century to the present day. Boston has been an important center for printmaking in a commercial capacity, including the Louis Prang Company. With the turn of the 20^th century, Boston artists established printmaking as a fine art medium. Area colleges and universities established printmaking programs, and a number of cooperative printmaking studios were formed. In 1947, The Boston Printmakers held their first meeting in the Library's Wiggin Gallery, and the 1960s saw the establishment of an area of the collection devoted to prints and drawings by contemporary Boston artists, building strong relationships that the Library continues to maintain today.

The Practice of Printmaking
Prints are created by a number of techniques that employ a variety of materials. The artist's creative process is brought to life by the inclusion in the Library's collection of a lithographic stone, copper plates for etchings and engravings, and blocks of wood for woodcuts and wood engravings that are related to works in the collection. Also included are examples of the tools used in etching and wood engraving and samples of some of the papers available to artists for printing.

Thomas Rowlandson (English, 1756-1827)
Rowlandson's prints, watercolors, and book illustrations satirize all aspects of the customs and politics of English society during the last quarter of the 18th and the first half of the 19th centuries.

Honoré Daumier (French, 1808-1879)
Although also a painter and a sculptor, Daumier is best known for the lithographs he created for publication in the French popular press during the turbulent years between the Revolution of 1830 and the Franco-Prussian War.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French, 1864-1901)
Lautrec regularly exhibited paintings and drawings throughout his career. However, he is best known for his lithographs and especially his posters, which celebrate cabarets and  performers active in the Montmartre district of Paris during the 1890s. 

Louis Prang & Company (1860-1897)
Louis Prang emigrated to the United States from Germany, settling first in New York and then in Boston, where in 1860 he established his own lithography firm. Between 1860 and 1897, Louis Prang & Company was one of the major publishers of chromolithographs in the United States.

James McNeill Whistler (American, 1834-1903)
Leaving the United States for Europe to pursue his artistic career, Whistler became a major figure in the revival of etching as a fine art that took place in France and England during the second half of the 19th century and was instrumental in introducing printmaking as a fine art to other American artists.

George Bellows (American, 1882-1925)
In 1904, George Bellows moved from Ohio to New York, where he studied painting with Robert Henri and then learned lithography, becoming one of the most respected American lithographers of the first half of the 20th century. His prints are some of the first to document the daily activities of the modern American city. 

The Boston Printmakers (1947-Present)
Founded by a group of faculty and students at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston to promote the field of printmaking, The Boston Printmakers have had a close relationship with Boston Public Library since their first meeting, which was held in the Library's Wiggin Gallery in 1947.  

SEARCH PRINTS & DRAWINGS USING OUR ONLINE DATABASE

Other BPL Prints & Drawings Resources

Only 30% of Arts collections are available online. Researchers are encouraged to send their questions to specialcollections@bpl.org. 

Step 1: Researchers interested in browsing a selection of Prints & Drawings collections generally are encouraged to search image sets found on the Boston Public Library's homepage on Digital Commonwealth. These sets are organized by the first name of the artist or subject. Click the following link for: Search tips.

Step 2: If you do not find what you are looking for via Digital Commonwealth or have further questions about prints or drawings collections, please contact curatorial staff at specialcollections@bpl.org. Because a significant percentage of the prints and drawings collections have not been digitized or cataloged, we are always happy to initiate a search within the physical collection.

Viewing BPL Arts Resources

Everyone is welcome to use our collections in our reading room. In order to best get our collections ready for your use, research appointments are required.
 

Step 1. To make a research appointment, log into or create a reading room account at readingroom.bpl.org, opens a new window and select “New Requests.”

Step 2. Within your Reading Room account, find the department that holds the material (Arts). If unsure, use any request form on the New Request page and staff will route your request to the correct department.

Step 3. Fill out the linked request form with as much information as you have. Skip any fields you don’t know or enter ‘unknown.’

Step 4. At the bottom of the request form, use the "New Appointment" button to schedule your visit.

Step 5. Look for confirmation that the item(s) you requested are available on the day you picked. Some material needs work from our staff to get them ready for use, which may cause a delay.