Drawings and Prints
The Met's collection of drawings and prints spans five centuries and includes works on paper in a vast range of media — from Renaissance woodcuts to contemporary screen prints.
From Renaissance woodcuts to cigarette cards — the printed image, high and low.
he printing press did to images what it did to words: multiplied them, cheapened them, sent them everywhere. The Met's vast holdings refuse to separate the masterpiece from the throwaway, collecting the engraved Old Master and the cigarette card with the same seriousness.
That breadth is the point. A Renaissance woodcut, a satirical etching, a stack of Allen & Ginter trade cards — together they tell the truer story of how printed pictures actually shaped what people saw, bought, and believed.