Exhibition | Antonio Balestra: Nel Segno della Grazia
Now on view in Verona:
Antonio Balestra: Nel Segno della Grazia / In the Sign of Grace
Museo di Castelvecchio, Verona, 19 November 2016 — 19 February 2017
Il Comune di Verona, Direzione Musei d’Arte e Monumenti honors the painter Antonio Balestra (1666–1740) on the occasion of the 350th anniversary of the artist’s birth with the exhibition Antonio Balestra: In the Sign of Grace, staged in the Castelvecchio Museum. The exhibition presents over sixty works: paintings, drawings, etchings, and volumes of prints, coming from public and private lenders.
Andrea Tomezzoli, Antonio Balestra: Nel Segno della Grazia (Verona: Scripta Edizioni, 2016), 208 pages, ISBN: 978-8898877690, $38.
Workshop | Etching for Curators and Researchers
From the workshop flyer:
Etching: A Practice-Based Workshop for Curators and Researchers
Gainsborough’s House, Sudbury, Suffolk, 29–30 March 2017
Convened by Jason Hicklin and Peter Moore
Join us for a two-day workshop at Gainsborough’s House that will bring together professionals whose work deals with prints—and in particular, etchings. Through a series of practical sessions in the Gainsborough’s House Print Workshop, accompanied by discussions around works from the collection, participants will gain a better appreciation of the materiality of etchings and a more nuanced understanding of how these processes have been applied and adapted by different artists at different times. The conception of this workshop represents a methodological shift in the academic study of prints, in which object-led and practice-based forms of research are increasingly recognised as valuable components of an art-historical education—especially for those who care for or interpret prints in a curatorial capacity.
Day one (Wednesday) will explore the processes of hard ground and soft ground etching. The first of these techniques, developed in the early sixteenth century, was mastered by artists such as Dürer and Rembrandt and came to occupy a central role in the history of western European art. The innovation of soft ground etching occurred later, in the second half of the eighteenth century, and was particularly popular in Britain; Gainsborough was among its earliest pioneers.
Day two (Thursday) will focus on aquatint, developed in the 1770s. As a tonal method, aquatint presented printmakers with a range of new possibilities for image making. Since its conception, it has been considered as a complementary technique to soft ground etching, and Gainsborough often used it in this way. The popularity of aquatint has continued into the modern era, with the sugar-lift process being favoured by Picasso.
The course will be jointly convened by Jason Hicklin, Lead Tutor and Head of Printmaking at the City & Guilds of London Art School, and Dr Peter Moore, Research Curator at Gainsborough’s House. Each day will run from 10am to 4pm. The cost is £180 (inc. VAT) and includes lunch and refreshments, but not accommodation. For further enquiries and to reserve your place, please contact peter@gainsborough.org. Limited places are available, so early booking is advised.
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