Jörg Schmeisser: Prints and Passages

This exhibition is devoted to the graphic art of the German-born Australian printmaker Jörg Schmeisser (1942-2012), whose work is represented by some twenty prints in Lauinger Library’s fine print collection. Jörg Schmeisser: Prints and Passages includes some of Schmeisser’s most significant earlier prints and an array of his best works from 1998-2012, including substantial loans from local private collections.

Jörg Schmeisser studied with the noted German printmaker Paul Wunderlich at the Hamburg Fine Art Academy in the mid-1960s. Over the following decades Schmeisser traveled widely through Europe, Asia, the Middle East, America and Antarctica. In 1978 he moved to Australia to become the Head of the Printmaking Workshop of the Australian National University, Canberra School of Art, where he was considered to be one of Australia’s most important and influential printmakers.

Schmeisser’s early etchings demonstrate his fascination with cities in Europe and Asia that he visited during his extensive travels. His large scale etchings often contain diaries of his thoughts and travels during the period of a print’s gestation. The diary print is one of Schmeisser’s most important innovations and is a significant element in some of his best works. The combination of text and image is reminiscent of the illustrated notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci. In the work of both artists, the handwritten text serves as a visual foil for the drawings.

Schmeisser was a master of the etching medium and also a talented teacher. For the portfolio Lord Howe Island (west wall floor), he wrote detailed instructions on how to create nine different variations on the intaglio medium. In a series of ten Venice Lionheads (of which four are displayed on the east wall), Schmeisser experimented with a variety of subtle color modifications to create different effects, where various details are emphasized depending on the application of color in each impression.

An exhibition of Schmeisser’s prints was featured in the Fairchild Gallery’s inaugural year in 1997. It is most fitting to pay tribute to the late artist in this inaugural year of our new gallery in the Booth Family Center for Special Collections. We are fortunate to have guest curator Eric Denker reprising his role from 1997 with this exhibition in recognition of Schmeisser’s extraordinary achievements in the art of intaglio printmaking.