Naoko Takahatake, Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, will introduce The Chiaroscuro Woodcut in Renaissance Italy, the first major exhibition on the subject in the United States.
On view at LACMA from June 4 – September 16, 2018, and then traveling to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, this exhibition of over 100 prints, drawings, and sculpture, explores the creative and technical history of this early color printmaking process. The chiaroscuro woodcut, which engaged the interest of such celebrated artists as Titian, Raphael, and Parmigianino, has been highly prized by collectors and art historians since the Renaissance; yet it remains one of the least understood techniques of early printmaking. With its accompanying catalogue, this exhibition offers fresh perspectives on these remarkable prints, which exemplify the beauty and innovation of Italian Renaissance art.
Prior to joining LACMA in 2010, Takahatake was an Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow in the Department of Old Master Prints at the National Gallery of Art, Washington. Takahatake received her BA from Vassar College and MSt and DPhil from the University of Oxford. She has published and lectured widely on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italian print history.