Freyda Spira – författare

A revealing examination of how mental illness informs and connects the highly charged work of Edvard Munch and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner   The Norwegian artist Edvard Munch (1863–1944) and the German artist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938) are considered modernist visionaries. They were also pioneering printmakers, eschewing the mastery of one technique for experimentation across many. Born a generation apart, they worked in an expressionist mode, in which they did not simply replicate what they saw but rather filtered everything through their own imagination and memories. Exploiting the perceptual and emotional power of color and abstraction for creative expression, they portrayed what they perceived to be a fragmented, harrowing reality; both artists endured bouts of anxiety and depression, battled substance abuse, and received psychiatric care. Featuring never-before-published prints from the collection of Nelson Blitz Jr. and Catherine Woodard, as well as etchings, lithographs, and hand-colored woodcuts from select public and private collections across the United States, this volume puts these two giants of Expressionism in a dialogue that foregrounds issues of mental health and offers a fresh approach that blends art history and the history of medical treatment. The included essays examine the artistic affinities and divergences in their printmaking and the ways in which they used shadows to imagine pathologized psychological and psychiatric experiences in their art.  Distributed for the Yale University Art Gallery  Exhibition Schedule:  Yale University Art Gallery(February 16–June 23, 2024)

The first comprehensive look at the origins and diffusion across Europe of the etched print during the late 15th and early 16th centuriesThe etching of images on metal, originally used as a method for decorating armor, was first employed as a printmaking technique at the end of the 15th century. This in-depth study explores the origins of the etched print, its evolution from decorative technique to fine art, and its spread across Europe in the early Renaissance, leading to the professionalization of the field in the Netherlands in the 1550s. Beautifully illustrated, this book features the work of familiar Renaissance artists, including Albrecht Dürer, Jan Gossart, Pieter Breughel the Elder, and Parmigianino, as well as lesser known practitioners, such as Daniel Hopfer and Lucas van Leyden, whose pioneering work paved the way for later printmakers like Rembrandt and Goya. The book also includes a clear and fascinating description of the etching process, as well as an investigation of how the medium allowed artists to create highly detailed prints that were more durable than engravings and more delicate than woodblocks.Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University PressExhibition Schedule:The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York(October 23, 2019–January 19, 2020)