Eleanor Linafelt
Chief Copy Editor
Out of the 6,000 prints in The College of Wooster Art Museum (CWAM) collection, Professor of Art History Tracy Cosgriff chose 30 for her students in her History of Prints seminar this semester to study and use to curate the exhibit, “Printing History: Observation, Imagination and the Ephemeral,” which opens next week. The show spans the total chronological history of prints in the West, including work by artists as wide-ranging as Albrecht Dürer, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Edward Hopper and Andy Warhol, to name only a few.
“It’s a sort of ambitious project and one that we’ve tackled largely thematically to guide our critical interrogation of those media and their histories,” said Cosgriff, outlining the four major themes of the exhibition as religion and spirituality, people and portraits, landscape and social commentary. Each student in the class was assigned a print or two to focus on depending on their interests. “We do historical research on the artist [and] visual analysis and then we write the wall text at the end. It’s kind of a little glimpse of what it’s like to put on an exhibition, which really interested me,” said Sarah Stutler ’20.
For the History of Prints course, Cosgriff typically holds one lecture-based class a week and one that is more hands-on in the museum. “On the one hand, there’s sort of a traditional structure to the seminar, and then on the other, it’s much more object-based and experiential and grounded in real opportunities for engagement and examination and connoisseurship,” said Cosgriff.
Stutler highlighted this unique structure as particularly conducive to learning. “I’ve really learned so much in this class and I think because it’s so hands-on,” she said.
Sophie Schrader ’19, who is approaching the class from the position of being a printmaker herself, explained how much the experience has taught her about curation.
“Before taking this class, I really had no idea what went into curating a show, but now when I walk into other shows I can kind of get a sense of how I’m supposed to interact with the work,” she said. In terms of what she wants the viewers of this show to get out of it, Schrader said, “I hope they realize that printing can really print history, as the title of the show kind of says. You can see many different perspectives and different historical contexts just from these tiny snippets.”
Cosgriff echoed this goal, expanding on the specific points she hopes that the exhibit will convey. “I’m deeply invested in popular access to art, and for that matter, I think that this collection in particular really lends itself to understanding the way in which prints as media have been major players in public engagement, popular vision and in critically interrogating our very definitions of artistic boundaries,” she said.
Stutler hopes that students who visit the exhibit gain a greater sense of the vastness of CWAM’s collection. “What I’m really impressed with when I go and see it is the kind of resources that we have in the art museum and that’s something I think I never really realized before taking this class,” she said. “It makes me really excited to be part of this and to go to this school, and maybe it will get people excited to take classes like this in the future.”
“Printing History: Observation, Imagination and the Ephemeral” is open from April 16 to May 12. The opening reception will be held on Thursday, April 18 at 6:30 p.m. and will feature gallery talks by students.