Printing Icons: Modern Process, Medieval Image, The Icon and Study Center, October 18, 2024–March 30, 2025

Printing Icons: Modern Process, Medieval Image explores the way print and icon painting interacted over the seventeenth to early twentieth centuries. It showcases works from across the Balkans, Eastern Europe and Russia to illuminate how traditional techniques, such as printing icons after traced panels, shaped perceptions of woodblocks and engravings, and how Western techniques transformed icon painting itself.

Printing Icons brings together over sixty works from six institutions and private collections to explore the methods used to create iconic prints. The exhibition examines the tensions between printers employing traditional techniques and those who relied on adjacent processes and the relationship between standalone prints and book illustrations.

This exhibit is supported in part by the International Center of Medieval Art and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. The Icon Museum and Study Center is grateful for the participation of Hilandar Research Library, The Mead Art Museum, the Russian History Museum, Princeton University Library, Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens, and Wheaton College.