PRINTS & ILLUSTRATED BOOKS

Prints have been an integral part of the Museum since its inception in 1929, with eight prints being among the very first works to enter the collection. Today, the department's holdings have grown to include more than 53,000 works dating from the 1880s to the present, forming the most comprehensive collection of modern and contemporary prints and illustrated books in the world. While traditional techniques such as woodcut, etching, lithography, and screenprint form the core of the collection, newer digital processes, multiples, and artist's books are also collected in breadth and depth. The important role of printmaking in artists' creative process is reflected in the inclusion of numerous states and working proofs, comprising one of the unique strengths of the collection.

The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Print Room

Online Exhibitions and Projects

• Wait, Later This Will Be Nothing: Editions by Dieter Roth
• Louise Bourgeois: The Complete Prints & Books
• New to the Print Collection: Matisse to Bourgeois
• Print/Out
• Thing/Thought: Fluxus Editions, 1962–1978
• Impressions from South Africa: 1965 to Now
• German Expressionism: Works from the Collection
• Picasso: Themes and Variations
• William Kentridge: Five Themes
• In & Out of Amsterdam
• Paper: Pressed, Stained, Slashed, Folded
• Paris - The 1890s
• Willie Cole New Concepts in Printmaking 2
• The Russian Avant-Garde Book 1910–1934
• Artists of Brücke Themes in German Expressionist Prints
• Kiki Smith: Prints, Books, and Things
• Eye on Europe: Prints, Books & Multiples 1960 to Now
• Artistic Collaborations 50 Years at Universal Limited Art Editions
• Repicturing the Past Picturing the Present
• Multiplex Directions in Art 1970 to Now
• Lucian Freud: The Painter's Etchings
• Wunderkammer a Century of Curiosities
• Kirchner and the Berlin Street
• Geo/Metric Prints and Drawings from the Collection
• Book/Shelf
• Focus: Jasper Johns