Prints, Drawings & Photographs
The BMA has an internationally renowned collection of 65,000 works on paper, including 4,000 drawings and 4,000 photographs, from the 15th century to the present. Considered one of the most significant collections of works on paper in the country, it is also a comprehensive resource for the study of European and American printmaking.
Two major collections form the core of the BMA’s holdings of works on paper. The collection of Baltimore industrialist and banker T. Harrison Garrett features works by Albrecht Dürer, Francisco Goya, and Rembrandt van Rijn among more than 20,000 engravings, etchings, and woodcuts ranging from the late 15th century through the late 19th century. The George A. Lucas Collection is one of the most significant resources in the United States for the study of 19th-century French art. An expatriate from Baltimore who spent five decades in Paris as a friend to many leading French artists and an agent for prominent American art collectors such as William Walters and Samuel D. Avery, Lucas amassed nearly 20,000 works on paper by Mary Cassatt, Honoré Daumier, Eugène Delacroix, Édouard Manet, James Abbot McNeill Whistler, and others.
The BMA’s photography collection has grown to more than 3,000 works of astonishing quality. The Gallagher/Dalsheimer collection features 20th-century American street photography and an exceptional group of experimental European photographs made between the wars. Photographers represented in depth include William Eggleston, Man Ray, Alfred Stieglitz, and Edward Weston. The collection has expanded with the addition of works by Gordon Parks and James Welling, as well as recent acquisitions of large-scale color photographs by contemporary artists Rineke Dijkstra, Jeff Wall, and Carrie Mae Weems.
Print, Drawing & Photograph Society
Enrich your Membership experience and deepen your understanding of the BMA's acclaimed collection of works on paper. Learn more about the group's vital support of the Museum in the bi-annual PDPS newsletter (pdf).
Interactive Features
See works from the exhibition Print by Print in exquisite detail and better understand demanding printmaking techniques through online galleries and interviews with acclaimed contemporary printmakers, produced by MICA students.
- The Apocalypse of Dürer and Redon
- The Prints of Hogarth and Raftery: A Comparison
- Contemporary Printmaking
- Printmaking Techniques
French Drawings Online Collections
The Baltimore Museum of Art and the Walters Art Museum have catalogued their collections of 19th-century French drawings in a searchable online database that makes approximately 900 rarely displayed works accessible to scholars and the general public.
Painted Prints Online Exhibition
Journey into a world of brilliantly colored Renaissance prints. What are painted prints? How were they made? What are they about? Why have we never seen them before? Explore an online gallery and zoom in on fascinating details.
