The symposium brings together students, academics, historians, artists, and museum professionals from around the world to explore and exchange ideas and research related to newly accessible material featured in the MFA’s latest online project, “Sylvester Koehler, Exploring Print History.”

In 1892, Sylvester Rosa Koehler (1837– 1900), the MFA’s first curator of prints and drawings, organized an exhibition featuring more than 700 works that traced the history and technology of printing in Europe and the United States. “Sylvester Koehler: Exploring Print History” resurrects the landmark exhibition and its catalogue, making them accessible in today’s digital age. Resources related to the show—and Koehler’s work more broadly—are available together online for the first time, anchored by an interactive version of the catalogue with links to database records of objects Koehler used (or may have used) in the original exhibition.

The MFA’s collections of prints, drawings, and photographs, are available to view in person by appointment in the Morse Study Room.

Order of Presentations

• “The Problems of Medium Specificity According to S. R. Koehler”
  Katie Larson, Assistant Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art History, Baylor University
• “New Mediums, New Directions: Reproducing Raphael in the Age of Lithography”
  Rebecca Szantyr, Print Specialist, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints, and Photographs, New York Public Library
• “Between the Ink and the Plate: Printmakers Troubleshooting with Color”
  Fenna Engelke, Morse Fellow for Advanced Training in Conservation of Works of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
• “Process Papers, Shading Mediums, and Mechanical Tints: An Exploration of Drawing Materials Made for Photomechanical Reproduction”
  Sarah Mirseyedi, PhD, Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow in Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, RISD Museum
• “Lines, Dots, Masses, and Combinations: Sylvester Koehler’s Intaglio Categories”
  Jennie Waldow, Luce Curatorial Fellow, Hammer Museum
• “Cataloging Secrets: Koehler’s Outline of Etching”
  Emily Arthur, Associate Professor of Printmaking, University of Wisconsin-Madison
• “Just Flong Enough: Two Hours of Light, Relief, and Pressure”
  Nora M. Rosengarten, PhD candidate, History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University
• “Dotting the Photomechanical Landscape: Frederick Ives’ Original Process and Sylvester Koehler’s 1892 Exhibition”
  Benjamin Levy, PhD candidate, Joint Program between Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Museum of Art