First pioneered in Northern Europe during the Renaissance, etching experienced a resurgence at the turn of the twentieth century. During this etching revival, groundbreaking artists such as Mary Cassatt, Käthe Kollwitz, and Suzanne Valadon adopted the intaglio print medium, which fostered experimentation and invited the ongoing development of personal imagery. In bringing visibility to the experience of women—including joy, ambiguity, and suffering—these artists laid the foundation for other women to use etching to assert their identities in male-dominated artistic and social spheres, explore marginalized communities, and build solidarity in and through the print studio.

This exhibition brings together the etchings of an international array of women who have continued to expand the scope of etching and their own creative practices. Through work of artists including Emma Amos, Mary Cassatt, Helen Frankenthaler, Käthe Kollwitz, Hung Liu, Louise Nevelson, Howardena Pindell, Dorothea Rockburne, Barbara Rossi, Alison Saar, and Suzanne Valadon, Front Lines explores such themes as gender, race, class, identity in addition to the expressive idioms of both figuration and abstraction.

Front Lines is curated by Cassandra Messick Braun, curator, and is supported by the Lowell Innes Fund.