The power of the print. The Role of the Graphic Arts in the Transnational Spread of Avant-Garde Art and Ideas

Nina Reid | The power of the print. The Role of the Graphic Arts in the Transnational Spread of Avant-Garde Art and Ideas | Radboud University, Art History department | Prof. Dr. Scott Nethersole, Dr. Jan Dirk Baetens, Dr. Marc Smeets | July 2024 – end June 2029 | nina.reid@ru.nl

My PhD research focuses on the European spread of the graphic arts during the turn of the 20th century. The fin-de-siècle was characterised by the remarkably rapid development of modern artistic styles, themes and ideologies, and their spread across national borders. Reproducible, affordable and easily distributed, the graphic arts lent themselves exceptionally well to a broad dissemination of innovative artistic and social ideals that engaged with the quickly developing condition of modernity. During the so-called ‘etching revival’, groups of artists began clubs and exhibition societies in order to advance the medium of etching, which was thought to be both more accessible and more artistically authentic than other media. Avant-garde etchings were actively disseminated throughout Europe and the United States with the mediation of these societies. However, print culture’s crucial role in facilitating these exchanges has hardly been researched. My research focuses on the London-based Royal Society for Painter-Etchers, Amsterdam’s De Nederlandsche Etsclub and the New York Etching Club, in order to study how these groups assimilated (inter)national ideologies in their works, exhibited both at home and abroad and how artists’ works were described in (inter)national contemporary criticism.