Description

The Kirk Edward Long Collection, one of the most comprehensive repositories of sixteenth-century prints in private hands, includes more than seven hundred engravings, etchings, woodcuts, and chiaroscuro woodcuts. They illuminate the sources, evolution, and transformation of mannerism, the dominant European style from about 1520 to 1580.
Instrumental in disseminating this style and published in the principal centers of graphic invention – Rome, Mantua, and Venice in Italy, Haarlem and Antwerp in the Low Countries, Fontainebleau and Paris in France, and Prague in the Holy Roman Empire – these prints represent the diversity of secular and religious themes favored at the time. The collection features original compositions as well as images designed by such prominent artists as Raphael, Giulio Romano, Maarten van Heemskerck, and it highlights the virtuosity of the century’s greatest printmakers, including Marcantonio Raimondi, Ugo da Carpi, Giorgio Ghisi, Parmigianino, Cornelis Cort, and Hendrick Goltzius. Famous, paradigmatic works are complemented by a multitude of fascinating prints by artists of less renown.
With over 850 illustrations, Myth, Allegory, and Faith is designed to introduce this extensive private collection to the public and to stimulate further study.

Bernard Barryte, Curator of European Art at the Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University, and curator of the Kirk Edward Long Collection, describes the formation of the collection and provides an overview of mannerism and printmaking.
Essays by ten renowned scholars describe various aspects of sixteenth-century print culture. In addition, the catalogue features 151 detailed entries on individual prints and suites by eighteen scholars, an illustrated checklist of the entire collection, and an extensive bibliography.

Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University, February – May 2016