Profile
M.S., Simmons College, 1975 A.B., Bryn Mawr College, 1968
Research Specialties
- Visual culture, including photomechanical processes and the history of American printmaking
- History of print collecting
- Women’s work in graphic arts
- Papermaking
Projects
Current Projects:
- Picturing Words: The Power of Book Illustration exhibition and web site for Smithsonian Institution Libraries
- Research on American print exhibitions and collectors before 1900
Past Projects:
- AMERICA ON STONE: THE HARRY T. PETERS COLLECTION OF 19th-CENTURY AMERICAN LITHOGRAPHS. Website, 2005.
- JULY 1942: UNITED WE STAND. Co-curator, Exhibition and website, 2002.
- AUDUBON & THE SMITHSONIAN. Exhibition, 1997. (for Smithsonian Institution Libraries)
- BUILDING A NATIONAL COLLECTION: 150 YEARS OF PRINT COLLECTING AT THE SMITHSONIAN. Exhibition and website, 1996.
- WITH PEN & GRAVER: WOMEN GRAPHIC ARTISTS BEFORE 1900. Exhibition & catalogue, 1995.
- WORKING PEOPLE: PHOTOGRAPHS BY MILTON ROGOVIN. Exhibition, 1992. 300 YEARS OF AMERICAN PAPERMAKING. Exhibition & catalogue, 1990-91.
- IMPERISHABLE BEAUTY: PICTURES PRINTED IN COLLOTYPE. Exhibition & catalogue, 1988.
- THE NAMING OF AMERICA: the Waldseemuller 1507 map. Exhibition, 1983.
Awards, Honors, and Special Recognition
- National Endowment for the Arts, Fellowship for Museum Professionals, 1973
- Beta Phi Mu, Graduate Honor Society, 1975
- Society for Industrial Archeology, General Tools Award for distinguished service, 1998
Professional Affiliations
- American Printing History Association
- Ephemera Society
- National Stereoscopic Association, board member
- Print Council of America
- Printing Historical Society
- Society for Industrial Archeology, past president
- Society for the History of Technology
Publications
“Slavic and Eastern European-Related Graphic Collections in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History"
in Slavic & East European Information Resources, vol.11, nos. 2-3 (Apr.-Sept.2010), pp. 226-245.
A National Audience for Prints: The Smithsonian’s Exhibition Program, 1923-1948
pp. 26-59 in North American Prints, 1913-1947: an Examination at Century’s End. Ed. David Tatham (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2006)
This essay describes the Smithsonian’s ambitious program of loan exhibitions that included many works by living artists. These exhibits introduced many new prints and printmakers to a broad national public between 1923 and 1948. Two appendices identify traveling group shows and the printmakers featured in solo exhibitions during this period.
“Photography in the Printing Press: The Photomechanical Revolution,” and “The Material Culture of Media: Museums of Printing and Photography,”
Presenting Pictures, Bernard Finn, ed., London: Science Museum, 2004.
Two essays in Volume 4 of the Artefacts series, studies in the history of science and technology, a collaboration of the Deutsches Museum (Munich), the Science Museum (London), and the Smithsonian. One discusses the role of photomechanical processes in reproducing and distributing pictures in the 19th century. The other describes selected museums that collect and exhibit visual collections and their apparatus.
“Print Collecting in the Gilded Age,”
Imprint: Journal of the American Historical Print Collectors Society, 29:1 (Spring 2004), pp. 2–13.
This article discusses Americans’ growing interest in prints in the last quarter of the 19th century, including exhibitions, sales, and the formation of collections.
“Publishers Wave the Flag After ‘Day of Infamy’,”
Ephemera News, 21:1 (Fall 2002), pp. 18–23.
This article presents some of the magazine covers produced in 1942 to celebrate the first Fourth of July after Pearl Harbor and the related exhibition at the National Museum of American History.
“The Smithsonian in Cincinnati: Exhibiting Prints at the Ohio Valley Centennial Exposition, 1888,”
in Alice M. Cornell, ed. Art as Image: Prints and Promotion in Cincinnati, Ohio (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2001), pp. 131–165.
This essay discusses the Smithsonian’s participation in a national exhibition, and describes the 1000 prints on view in the graphic arts section. It provides an appendix listing all artists and publishers included in the exhibition.
History of Photography special issue: “The Photographic History Collection, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.”
Guest editor, 24:1 (Spring 2000)
A special issue of the journal History of Photography featured the Photographic History Collection at the National Museum of American History. Essays on several aspects of collection including daguerreotypes, W. H. F. Talbot, J. W. Draper, Pictorialism, color photography, and photomechanical processes.
“Prints in the Sartains’ Circle,”
Philadelphia’s Cultural Landscape: The Sartain Family Legacy, Katharine Martinez and Page Talbott, eds., (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000), pp. 25–38.
In a volume that presents a number of conference papers, this essay discusses the importance of prints to artists and collectors in Philadelphia in relation to the Sartain family of artists and art educators.
Prints at the Smithsonian: the Origins of a National Collection.
(Washington: NMAH, 1996)
Catalog of an exhibition celebrating 150 years of print collecting by the Smithsonian Institution. Essay examines the history of public attitudes and cultural changes that affected artists, collectors, curators, and audiences.