0.3 Introduction: the birth of american artist printmaking  (Page 4/9)

It is important to note that the rise of etching in the late nineteenth century was not a movement unto itself. Labeling theperiod’s activities in etching as an isolated movement discounts the extraordinary activity in related graphic arts—and their importance to theartists. What began in 1877 with the formation of the New York Etching Club can best be placed as part of a golden age in the arts generally and the alreadyflourishing graphic arts movement in America at the end of the nineteenthcentury. A great deal of the appeal of free hand etching to both artists and their public was rooted in an already well-established taste for drawing—themost fundamental of the graphic arts. Interest in etching was supported by a broader movement that included work in graphite, charcoals, pastel, crayon, andinnumerable forms of commercial illustration work.

Our public libraries and private institutions hold a staggering amount of material and supporting documentation on this graphic artsmovement. Such publications as American Art Review , The Art Review , The Art Journal , The Magazine of Art , The Critic , The Quarterly Illustrator , Scribner's , The Century Magazine , and The Art Amateur contained innumerable announcements, reviews and criticism of graphic art exhibitions, and reproductions of individual prints. Countless otherillustrated publications were designed around and focused upon their graphic art content.

In the years just prior to the founding of the New York Etching Club, both the Salmagundi Sketch Club and the Art Students Leagueof New York (both still active today) were organized around drawing and sketching classes. As early as 1876, the American Water Color Society wassetting aside separate space—the “Black&White Room”—for the exhibition and sale of drawings, charcoals, and etchings. Shortly after Smillie launched theNew York Etching Club, the Tile Club and Scratcher’s Club were established, as were numerous similar groups in related graphic art media, including woodcut andlithography.

The minutes reproduced in this volume highlight many of the roles played by the New York Etching Club in this larger movement. Theyalso highlight the club’s influence: In 1880, for example, in a sequence of events that began with the November 1880 minutes entry, the etchers were invitedto exhibit both at the February 1881 exhibit of the American Water Color Society, to be held at the American Academy of Design, and at the SalmagundiSketch Club exhibit, to be held in the same venue in December 1880. Opting enthusiastically for the latter, etching club members accounted for thirty-fourof the 130 etchings by nearly fifty artists exhibited at the “The Third Annual Exhibit of Black&White Art.” Numerous the other etchings were contributed by such future club members as Thomas Moran and Stephen Parrish. No etchingswere exhibited at the American Water Color Society’s February 1881 exhibition. See The American Water Color Society’s 1881 exhibition catalog. See also The Salmagundi Sketch Club’s Third Annual Exhibition of Black&White Art , catalogue documenting the December 18, 1880, to January 1, 1881, show at the National Academy of Design,New York City.