• Arca Artium
• About Frank Kacmarcik
• Search the Arca Artium Catalogue
• Prints
• Books

The print collection contains more than three thousand items, including some non-print works such as drawings, calligraphy, paintings and photographs. These works enhance and complement the book collections. They date from the 14th to the 20th century and represent artists from more than sixteen countries around the world.

Subjects coincide with interests reflected in the book collections: architecture, particularly church and monastic architecture; leaves from liturgical books; biblical illustrations and other religious imagery; depictions of ceremonies and genre scenes; examples of calligraphy; title pages and printers' colophons. In addition, there are hundreds of portraits of theologians, churchmen, royalty, artists, calligraphers and printers--many by major artists--all putting a face on history.

This collection is particularly strong in woodcuts, engravings, etchings and lithographs, processes used to illuminate books since printing was invented. There are excellent examples showing these techniques sensitively refined and creatively exploited. The large selection of twentieth century prints exhibits a wide range of printing methods employed by Eastern and Western artists. Highlights from the print collection include:

15th-16th century: religious subjects printed from wood cuts and wood engravings by Dürer, Raimondi (translating Dürer paintings into prints), Beck and Beham;

16th-17th century: set of biblical or religious book illustrations, such as Gospel stories, the works of mercy or celebrations of the sacraments by the Sadeler family, Visscher and Galle; a collection of engravings depicting religious subjects by J. Wierix and another of funerary monuments designed by Radi;

17th century: a strong representation of fine etched and engraved religious subjects and title pages from France by Callot and Mellan, and portraits by Nanteuil and Morin; works by the Bohemian artist Hollar, including the complete volumes of Wm. Dugdale's The History of St. Paul's Cathedral and his Monasticon Anglicanum, containing Hollar's architectural illustrations;

17th-18th century: a sizeable collection of illustrations for Classics and depictions of religious ceremonies by Picart; smaller, but exquisite, collections of engraved portraits by Edelinck and Drevet;

18th century: a substantial collection of Piranesi's engravings of architecture and monuments;

19th century: a collection of Cotman's etchings of church architecture; many religious subjects and book illustrations by J. and S. Sartain, representing skilled engraving and nineteenth-century tastes; a number of portraits by Gaillard, showing successive states;

19th-20th century: etchers from England and America are well represented with street scenes and landscapes by Brangwyn, MacLaughlan and Pennell; a particularly large collection (eighty prints) of Legros encompasses the span of his work in both time and subject matter; the revival of art as an expression of deep Christian faith is exemplified with significant collections of work by Denis and Rouault, and in particular with a major collection of Eric Gill's designs, both single sheets and complete volumes;

20th century: collections of exquisitely detailed etchings of Gothic cathedrals and monasteries by Arms and Chamberlain; a collection of Albers' prints as well as the complete Interaction of Color and Formulation, Articulation; Cubist works by Braque, Marcoussis and Picasso; collections of biblical subjects by Chagall, Shahn and Ben-Zion; fine examples of the complex techniques of color stencil and wood block by Watanabe and Tajima; collections of Gág, Cook, Lebrun, Baskin, Hnizdovsky, Siegl, Peterdi and Wou-ki showing fine craftsmanship demonstrated in wide range of print processes, subjects and styles.