N.S. Reid (Nina) MA

My dissertation investigates the ideological mobility of etching between Britain, the Netherlands, and the United States during the fin-de-siècle (c. 1880-1914). During the “etching revival,” artists founded exhibition societies to promote etching as both accessible and artistically authentic, and avant-garde prints circulated widely across Europe and the U.S. Yet, the exact nature and impact of these transmissions have received limited scholarly attention, as most studies focus on a single national context or artistic grouping. My project employs narrative case studies to trace how print ideologies, styles, and artworks travelled, and how artist groups selectively adapted, co-opted and naturalised foreign methods and ideologies to suit their particular artistic projects.

My research focuses on three etching societies, the London-based Royal Society for Painter-Etchers, Amsterdam’s De Nederlandsche Etsclub and the New York Etching Club, in order to study how these groups assimilated foreign artistic ideologies in their works, exhibited both at home and abroad and how artists’ works were described in (inter)national contemporary criticism.