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150 Years
of Print Collecting at the Smithsonian
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The Artist as Collector
Artists collect prints for aesthetic inspiration and technical guidance. In the years
before public art collections were available for viewing, many artists maintained their
own collections of reproductive engravings for study. When the Marsh Collection had
been at the Smithsonian for over a year, the 1850 Annual Report noted it had attracted
much interest, "not from undiscriminating idlers, but from men of taste and
particularly from artists."
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Rembrandt Bankrupt |
Artists also received works from their mentors and contemporaries. The Museum's
collection has been enriched not only with works created and presented by generous
artists but through acquisition of their personal collections as well. Artists in particular
have been gratified to find a collection that focused on the technical aspects of
printmaking. Moreover, from the 1920s into the 1960s, before the creation of separate
Smithsonian art museums, the Graphic Arts division sponsored a succession of
short-term exhibitions of the work of living artists.
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