PAPER VAULT
A Family Affair: Artistic Dynasties in Europe (Part I, 1500–1700)
OPENS
January 25, 2025
CLOSES
June 15, 2025
SHARE
About the Exhibit
How far does the apple fall from the tree? Just as certain traits, abilities, and resources might be inherited from a parent, professions traditionally were as well. This exhibition tells the stories of 16 printmaking families active in European cities from Antwerp to Prague in the 16th and 17th centuries. In some cases, families appear artistically tight-knit, developing a “house style” to a degree that the works of individual members are almost indistinguishable from one another and their “brand” is maintained. In other instances, members of the younger generation struck out on their own, venturing far across Europe to seek new patrons and updating their style to suit changing tastes (although still trading on their parents’ reputations). The copperplates of famous relatives were valuable inheritances that, through reprinting, prolonged the legacies of certain artistic dynasties for several centuries.
Drawing from the Blanton’s collection of historical European art, A Family Affair presents prints, drawings, and paintings created by some of the continent’s most fascinating artistic families, revealing patterns of inspiration, rivalry, and changing family fortunes.
The second part of this exhibition, A Family Affair: Artistic Dynasties in Europe (Part II, 1700–1900), opens June 28, 2025.
Curated by Holly Borham, Associate Curator of Prints, Drawings and European Art, and Sarah Bane, Assistant Curator, Prints & Drawings, Blanton Museum of Art.
Members get free admission.
Related Events
Feb. 8, 2025 – Art with an Expert: Hendrick Goltzius–Family and Friends
Larry Silver, Farquhar Professor of Art History, emeritus, at the University of Pennsylvania specializes in painting and graphics of Northern Europe, particularly Germany and the Netherlands, during the era of Renaissance and Reformation.
Silver will discuss the intersecting networks of printmakers, painters, and designers surrounding Hendrick Goltzius (1558–1617), the most celebrated Netherlandish printmaker of his day.
Image Gallery
Credit
Info coming soon.
Feature Image Credit
(left to right) Hendrick Goltzius, Aether, plate six from Demogorgon and the Deities, 1588-1590, chiaroscuro woodcut from three blocks, tone blocks printed in ochre and brown, 13 7/8 × 10 5/8 in. Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Archer M. Huntington Museum Fund, 1983.48 and Jacob Matham, Summer, plate 2 from The Seasons, after Hendrick Goltzius, 1589, engraving, 10 × 10 in. Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, The Leo Steinberg Collection, 2002.2040