February 18 through May 20, 2001

The Ackland Art Museum, in celebration of the 200th anniversary of the revolutionary printing process now called lithography, is hosting Touchstone: 200 Years of Artists' Lithographs. Over 50 works will be on display including lithographs by: Degas, Delacroix, Géricault, Goya, de Kooning, Manet, Picasso, Rauschenberg and Yanagi.

Since its invention in 1798, when it was called chemical printing from stone, lithography has developed in every imaginable direction. Commercially, lithography has been adapted to the production of everything from microchip wafers to barn-sized posters. Lithographs can be produced from photographs, and now from digitally captured images and computerized instructions compiled as bitmaps. Yet lithography has also remained a premier fine-art process.

The basic principle of lithography, including transfer lithography, is the mutual repulsion of water and grease. The printing surface is a polished stone (or metal plate) on which the design is drawn with a greasy material. All surfaces but the lines of the drawing, repel the greasy ink that has been applied to the moistened stone. The artist does not need to learn complex chemical or mechanical procedures, and there is no need to master unfamiliar motions in carving or scraping. The creation of the design and the processing of the printing stone can be independent operations, and while collaboration is norm today, historically artists and printers worked separately.

Of all the printmaking techniques, only lithography has allowed the artist to use his or her accustomed tools and materials - brush and paint, pen and ink, crayon, paper - to make prints. Indeed, Touchstone focuses on the freedom lithography affords the artist. It celebrates its capacity to record the autographic touch, whether expressed in drawn line or brushed tone, or quite literally through the fingerprint - or even the mark of a kiss.

Touchstone is circulated by the Harvard University Art Museums. Its installation at the Ackland is funded in part by the William Hayes Ackland Trust.