This exhibition explores nocturnes–images that evoke the night. Luminous apparitions of the divine, dazzling fireworks, lamplit urban streets, and twilight’s soft glow over the natural landscape are all subjects that have intrigued and challenged printmakers across the centuries.

Nocturnes by European and American artists reveal the dark hours to be as lively as they are quiet. Nightfall demonstrates how these artists employ a range of printmaking techniques—mezzotint (a tonal method called the “dark manner”), etching, engraving, woodcut, and lithography—to render contrasts between light and shade as well as the atmospheric effects of light emanating from the night sky or electrical sources.



 

Download The Nightfall Exhibition Checklist

Nightfall artwork dimensions as well as credit lines for all the works in the exhibition.

ROCKWELL KENT American, 1882-1971
Twilight of Man, 1926
Wood engraving on maple
Overall: 8 1/2 × 11 1/8 in. Plate: 5 1/2 × 8 in.
Promised Gift of Frank Raysor, L.139.2010.72

Download Here

Nightfall: Prints of the Dark Hours is largely drawn from the Frank Raysor Collection, a generous promised gift to the museum.


Feedback