While we think of etching as a linear, black and white medium, in the most skilled hands this printmaking technique can produce atmospheric tones and surface effects worthy of a painting.

In the late nineteenth century, French printmaker Félix Buhot effected a kind of sorcery on his etching plates, making each impression into a unique work of art simply by varying the inking technique and the inks and papers used. With his evocative, atmospheric scenes of stormy piers and urban streetscapes, he dissolved classic distinctions between figure and ground in ways that challenge the limits of the etching medium.

This display—joining examples from the Hearn Family Trust and Charles Hack with Smart works—allows the visitor to gain a glimpse of Buhot’s extraordinary, evolving artistic process over multiple states and variations of the same print.