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Contact: Art and the Pull of Print
A leading art historian presents a new grammar for understanding the meaning and significance of print
In process and technique, printmaking is an art of physical contact. From woodcut and engraving to lithography and screenprinting, every print is the record of a contact event: the transfer of an image between surfaces, under pressure, followed by release. Contact reveals how the physical properties of print have their own poetics and politics and provides a new framework for understanding the intelligence and continuing relevance of printmaking today.
The seemingly simple physics of printmaking brings with it an array of metamorphoses that give expression to many of the social and conceptual concerns at the heart of modern and contemporary art. Exploring transformations such as reversal, separation, and interference, Jennifer Roberts explores these dynamics in the work of Christiane Baumgartner, David Hammons, Edgar Heap of Birds, Jasper Johns, Corita Kent, Glenn Ligon, Julie Mehretu, Robert Rauschenberg, and many other leading artists who work at the edge of the medium and beyond.
Focusing on the material and spatial transformations of the printmaking process rather than its reproducibility, this beautifully illustrated book explores the connections between print, painting, and sculpture, but also between the fine arts, industrial arts, decorative arts, and domestic arts. Throughout, Roberts asks what artists are learning from print, and what we, in turn, can learn from them.
Published in association with the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington
In process and technique, printmaking is an art of physical contact. From woodcut and engraving to lithography and screenprinting, every print is the record of a contact event: the transfer of an image between surfaces, under pressure, followed by release. Contact reveals how the physical properties of print have their own poetics and politics and provides a new framework for understanding the intelligence and continuing relevance of printmaking today.
The seemingly simple physics of printmaking brings with it an array of metamorphoses that give expression to many of the social and conceptual concerns at the heart of modern and contemporary art. Exploring transformations such as reversal, separation, and interference, Jennifer Roberts explores these dynamics in the work of Christiane Baumgartner, David Hammons, Edgar Heap of Birds, Jasper Johns, Corita Kent, Glenn Ligon, Julie Mehretu, Robert Rauschenberg, and many other leading artists who work at the edge of the medium and beyond.
Focusing on the material and spatial transformations of the printmaking process rather than its reproducibility, this beautifully illustrated book explores the connections between print, painting, and sculpture, but also between the fine arts, industrial arts, decorative arts, and domestic arts. Throughout, Roberts asks what artists are learning from print, and what we, in turn, can learn from them.
Published in association with the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington
- GenresArt
230 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 14, 2024
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April 30, 2025from the introduction:
In order to make this argument, I will need to take an unorthodox approach to the history and theory of printmaking. First, although I will often linger lovingly on historic prints and traditional printmaking techniques, I will focus my analysis primarily on modern and contemporary artists that work at the very edge of the medium and beyond. The chapter on pressure, for example, will feature printing presses being used to smash ironing boards, fires being set on press beds, and human bodies being used as printing plates. Such operations stretch printmaking almost beyond recognition (and they are often carried out by artists who do not strictly recognize themselves as printmakers), but in doing so they reveal some of the forgotten potentials that print has carried within itself all along. […]
Second, I will focus relentlessly upon the "making" part of printmaking. I am interested in the unique ways that printmaking generates meaning at the level of fundamental physical operations. I want to get at the physics of print, and to explore the poetics and politics that might emerge from that physics. […] So rather than organize this book around particular artists, or around chronological developments in print history, or around the standard workshop subdivisions of print media (etching, lithography, etc.), I'll organize it around a set of basic physical operations or maneuvers that cut across these traditional ways of arranging knowledge about print.
The maneuvers I'll be tracing, one per chapter, are as follows: pressure; reversal; separation; strain; interference; and alienation. […] You may have noticed that my list of essential print operations does not include "replication" or "repetition" or "reproduction." This is intentional.
*
first sentences:
The working definition of a print in this book will be as follows: a print is an object that has been made by transferring an image between two surfaces in contact. Every print is the result of a process of contact and release, which links it immediately to themes of touch, presence, and intimacy—but also to themes of loss, separation, and memory.
*
oh how I’m absolutely LOVING this book! plus the design throughout is exceptional. highly recommend for fellow printers & educators, plus truly ANYONE interested in printmaking as a medium…
In order to make this argument, I will need to take an unorthodox approach to the history and theory of printmaking. First, although I will often linger lovingly on historic prints and traditional printmaking techniques, I will focus my analysis primarily on modern and contemporary artists that work at the very edge of the medium and beyond. The chapter on pressure, for example, will feature printing presses being used to smash ironing boards, fires being set on press beds, and human bodies being used as printing plates. Such operations stretch printmaking almost beyond recognition (and they are often carried out by artists who do not strictly recognize themselves as printmakers), but in doing so they reveal some of the forgotten potentials that print has carried within itself all along. […]
Second, I will focus relentlessly upon the "making" part of printmaking. I am interested in the unique ways that printmaking generates meaning at the level of fundamental physical operations. I want to get at the physics of print, and to explore the poetics and politics that might emerge from that physics. […] So rather than organize this book around particular artists, or around chronological developments in print history, or around the standard workshop subdivisions of print media (etching, lithography, etc.), I'll organize it around a set of basic physical operations or maneuvers that cut across these traditional ways of arranging knowledge about print.
The maneuvers I'll be tracing, one per chapter, are as follows: pressure; reversal; separation; strain; interference; and alienation. […] You may have noticed that my list of essential print operations does not include "replication" or "repetition" or "reproduction." This is intentional.
*
first sentences:
The working definition of a print in this book will be as follows: a print is an object that has been made by transferring an image between two surfaces in contact. Every print is the result of a process of contact and release, which links it immediately to themes of touch, presence, and intimacy—but also to themes of loss, separation, and memory.
*
oh how I’m absolutely LOVING this book! plus the design throughout is exceptional. highly recommend for fellow printers & educators, plus truly ANYONE interested in printmaking as a medium…
October 21, 2025
Read for class but really enjoyed. Would recommend the lecture format on YouTube because she’s a very engaging storyteller. I feel like I know a lot more about jasper johns as well as printmaking. Lowkey she should have titled it the matrix.
October 12, 2024
i need to read everything jennifer roberts has ever written
November 24, 2024
This is not just a smart book, it is a beautiful book, a very human-scale book. It takes a rather banal image-making process, defamiliarizes it without jargon, and helps us see so many new things and make so many new connections. Very highly recommended. I will be thinking about it for months and years to come, I'm sure (especially since I'm about to embark on writing an essay about a printmaker). 👍🏽👍🏽
December 3, 2025
Could have given this book 5 stars since its super rare to find a comprehensive book that speaks in depth of printmaking materiality. But the lack of asian printmakers being mentioned was super off. I mean no Khrisna Reddy? the printmaker who pioneered viscosity print????
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews