CFP: Printmaking as Passe-Partout: Leveraging Skill and Knowledge in Artists’ Migration, 15th-18th Centuries (APS-sponsored RSA Panel, Dublin 30 Mar – 2 Apr 2022)

The RSA invites proposals for this panel at our 68th Annual Meeting in Dublin, Ireland on Wednesday, 30 March through Saturday, 2 April.

Submission deadline: 26 July 2021

During the early-modern period, the growing and increasingly international market for prints offered artists a means to find employment in many different places. The widespread availability of presses eliminated the need to travel with heavy equipment or to establish a workshop of one’s own, thus allowing printmakers to maintain and further their careers from multiple locations, sometimes staying only briefly before migrating again. Whether simply seeking new professional opportunities, or fleeing from religious persecution and/or the destruction of war, the ability to supply (new) content through the mediums of woodcuts, engravings and etchings could open doors to court appointments, collaborations with established artists and printer-publishers, and new groups of customers. Framing printmaking as a vehicle of access, this panel seeks to explore how artists in the period from the late fifteenth- to the early eighteenth century leveraged their practical skills and specialized know-how as they sought domicile in new cities and/or countries across Europe, and beyond.

Papers for this panel might address ways in which individual printmakers sought to (re-)shape their identity through the proliferation of specific subject matter, advertised their skill by adhering to the current style and taste in their place of origin, or made use of existing (international) networks of contacts to guide their way to new opportunities. Also of interest are instances in which artists active in other disciplines turned to printmaking, specifically because of the flexibility of the medium.

Contributions that take a macro approach, addressing particular groups of artists, centers of printmaking or (changing) currents over a longer period of time are also greatly encouraged.

Proposals should include:
• Paper title (15-word maximum)
• Paper abstract (150-word maximum)
• Resume (.pdf or .doc upload)
• PhD or other terminal degree completion year (past or expected)
• Full name, current affiliation, and email address
• Primary discipline

Convenor: Femke Speelberg, Metropolitan Museum: Femke.Speelberg@metmuseum.org
More: https://www.rsa.org/