The Knotty Art of Printmaking

Printmaking, which dates to ancient times, was long considered a craft, useful mainly for reproducing religious illustrations. But with his intricate woodcuts and engravings, Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) elevated it to a fine art. “One cannot overstate the influence of Dürer on the history of the print,” says Naoko Takahatake, curator of a new show at the University of California, Los Angeles’ Hammer Museum, “Sum of the Parts,” which covers 500 years of printmaking. “From a purely technical point of view, engraving and woodcut for centuries have been measured against his example.”

A series of the German master’s “knot” prints, which are based on designs by Leonardo da Vinci, is a highlight of the exhibit, which aims to demonstrate how artists use sequential prints to explore ideas, develop a theme or tell a story. “Often, in exhibitions, a single print is shown alone, extracted from a series—it’s like a quote from a book,” Takahatake says. “But when you have the whole series, you can see how one image interacts and connects with the next.”