Overview
The international print collection includes a strong representation of German, Dutch, and Italian prints from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries; French prints of the nineteenth century; and twentieth century British prints. There is also a smaller group of Japanese woodblock prints.
Particular highlights are large holdings of engravings and woodcuts by Albrecht Dürer and etchings by Rembrandt. English satirical prints of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries by William Hogarth and James Gillray are well represented, as are the etchings and aquatints of James McNeill Whistler.
Twentieth century
A highlight of the collection dating from the early twentieth century is the large number of etchings, including some rare versions of prints, by Australian artist Lionel Lindsay.
A large collection of linocuts by artists influenced by English artist Claude Flight, who pioneered a particular kind of linocut print, is also held. These works from the 1930s are a highlight of the extensive and comprehensive collection of twentieth century British prints.
There is a collection of early twentieth century European prints by artists such as Pablo Picasso, Eric Heckel, Wassily Kandinsky, Max Ernst, and André Masson.
Experimental prints by Pop artists of the 1960s and 1970s form a distinctive group within the collection and feature the work of artists such as Roy Lichtenstein, Eduardo Paolozzi, Richard Hamilton, and Robert Rauschenberg.
New directions in printmaking in the 1980s by international artists are represented by, among others, Bea Maddock, William Wiley, Susan Rothenberg, George Baselitz, and Dorothea Rockburne.