The Ashmolean Museum holds a world-class collection of over 200 prints made by Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn (1606-1669). Widely hailed as the greatest painter of the Dutch Golden Age, Rembrandt was also one of the most innovative and experimental printmakers of the seventeenth century. Rembrandt was extraordinary in creating prints not merely as multiples to be distributed but also as artistic expressions by using the etching printmaking technique for the sketchy compositions so typical of him. Almost drawing-like in appearance, these images were created by combining spontaneous lines with his remarkable sense for detail. Rembrandt was a keen observer and this clearly shows in his choice of subjects for his etchings: intense self-portraits with their penetrating gaze; atmospheric views of the Dutch countryside; lifelike beggars seen in the streets of his native Leiden; intimate family portraits as well as portrayals of his wealthy friends in Amsterdam; and biblical stories illustrated with numerous figures. This book presents Rembrandt as an unrivalled storyteller through a selection of over 70 prints from the Ashmolean collection through a variety of subjects ranging from 1630 until the late 1650s.

In 1891, Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) traveled to Tahiti in an effort to live simply and to draw inspiration from what he saw as the island's exotic native culture. Although the artist was disappointed by the rapidly westernizing community he encountered, his works from this period nonetheless celebrate the myth of an untainted Tahitian idyll, a myth he continued to perpetuate upon his return to Paris. He created a travel journal entitled Noa Noa (fragrant scent), a largely fictionalized account that recalled his immersion into the spiritual world of the South Seas. To illustrate his text, Gauguin turned for the first time to the woodcut medium, creating a series of ten dark and brooding prints that he intended to publish alongside his journal-a publication that was never realized. The woodcuts crystallized important themes from his work and are the focus of this major new study. Gauguin's Paradise Remembered addresses both the artist's representation of Tahiti in the woodcut medium and the impact these works had on his artistic practice. Through its combined sense of immediacy (in the apparent directness of the printing process) and distance (through the mechanical repetition of motifs), the woodcut offered Gauguin the ideal medium to depict a paradise whose real attraction lay in its remaining always unattainable. With two insightful essays, this book posits that Gauguin's Noa Noa prints allowed him to convey his deeply Symbolist conception of his Tahitian experience while continuing his experiments with reproductive processes and other technical innovations that engaged him at the time. Distributed for the Princeton University Art Museum Exhibition Schedule: Princeton University Art Museum(09/25/10-01/02/11)

Philip Hofer, who founded the Department of Printing and Graphic Arts in the Houghton Library, was a curator and collector of great zeal and singular taste. In this exhibition catalogue his successor, Eleanor Garvey, explores the rich legacy Hofer bequeathed to Harvard: extraordinary manuscripts, writing manuals, illustrated books, and examples of fine and unusual printing. The objects of Hofer's fancy constitute a teaching collection and a scholarly resource of the highest kind. They also justify the reputation he earned over a long and unique career as the "Prince of the Eye."

Ink-Stained Hands fulfils a considerable gap in Irish visual arts publications as the first book to present the activities of printmakers in Ireland from the end of the nineteenth century to the present. The central narrative of this profusely illustrated and documented book is the foundation of Graphic Studio Dublin in 1960, an event which revolutionized the graphic arts in Ireland and made the European tradition of printmaking available to Irish artists.

One of the most dominant strains of ukiyo-e - "pictures of the floating world" - in the early 19th century concerned itself with depictions of prostitutes and geisha, the denizens and queens of pleasure quarters such as the Yoshiwara in old Edo. A symbiosis between art and life helped form a new cult of the courtesan, an idealized icon whose skills in love-making were matched only by her sophistication, wit and elegance. In ukiyo-e, the exotic kimono of the courtesan became a canvas upon which artists like Kunisada could project their most outre, intricate and colour-saturated designs, dazzling bursts of flora, fauna and arcane symbolism. Known as bijin-ga ("beauty pictures"), this print genre flourished right up until the 1860s, when its popularity began to wane. EMPIRE OF THE SENSES contains an extensive selection of courtesan portraits and triptychs, by artists ranging from Choki and Eisho to Kunichika, Kunisada II and Kyosai, as well as many other prints of female beauty. It also has sections on genj-e (beauty triptychs inspired by the literary classic Genji monogatari) and onnagata (kabuki actors who specialised in female impersonation), and includes two complete sets of classic bijin-ga from the Meiji period: Yoshitoshi's Fuzoku Sanjuniso ("32 Aspects Of Beauty," 1888), and Kiyochika's Hana Moyo ("Flower Designs," 1896). EMPIRE OF THE SENSES features over 200 rare and exceptional Japanese woodblock prints of beautiful women. The artists featured in the book comprise many of the most outstanding ukiyo-e print-designers of the Edo and Meiji periods, each of whom used their immense artistic talent and imagination to brilliantly illuminate the enigmatic allure of Japanese femininity. Artists featured include: Eisho, Eishi, Choki, Utamaro, Eizan, Eisen, Shikimaro, Shunsen, Toyokuni I, Kunisada, Kuniyoshi, Yoshitoshi, Yoshiyuki, Kunichika, Sadahide, Shigenobu, Tominobu, Sadakage, Kunisada II, Sencho, Fusatane, Yoshitora, Yoshiiku, Toyoshige, Kyosai, Chikanobu, and Kiyochika.

The catalogue opens with Andrea Mantegna's ambitious engraving of The Flagellation of Christ (around 1465-70), in which the Italian Renaissance artist powerfully reinvents this often depicted Passion scene. By contrast, the grand scale of a ten-part engraving after Michelangelo's celebrated Last Judgment by French printmaker Nicolas Beatrizet exemplifies the ability of a print to reproduce a monumental work of art in spectacular fashion. Subjects of Christian iconography dominate 15th- and 16th-century printmaking but from early on were complemented by secular topics, with printmakers catering for a demand amongst collectors for new imagery. A superb example is Pieter Bruegel the Elder's Rabbit Hunt (1560), the only print known to be executed by the artist himself and one of a group of master prints bequeathed to the collection by Count Antoine Seilern in 1978. Bruegel chose the etching technique whereby its relative freedom and ease is more closely comparable to drawing, allowing him to render a scene with remarkable naturalism. The possibilities of printmaking greatly expanded in subsequent centuries. Prints could record historical events such as battles or pageants, as in the exquisite etchings of Jacques Callot and Stefano della Bella. Canaletto's views of 18th-century Venice play wilful games with the city's geography and are shown alongside the striking architectural inventions of his contemporary Piranesi. The 19th century in France saw avant-garde artists embracing printmaking, with Edouard Manet's homage to Old Masters, Paul Gauguin's revival of the woodcut and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec's brilliant adoption of the newer technique of lithography for his evocative depictions of Parisian entertainment such as his highly dynamic Jockey from Samuel Courtauld's collection. In the 20th century Pablo Picasso's and Henri Matisse's tireless experimentation with print techniques helped ensure the vitality of printmaking in the art of their time. The catalogue concludes with prints by Lucian Freud, now widely acknowledged as a modern master of the medium, and by more recent work by Chris Ofili, whose prints, both figurative and abstract, continued to reinvent printmaking in the 21st century.