The Emile H. Mathis Gallery is excited to announce our exhibitions for Spring 2026. These shows highlight the history of prints and printmaking. The One-Off Print: Monotypes from the UWM Art Collection (curated by Art History MA student Emma Erickson) will challenge everything you thought you knew about prints. Don’t know anything about prints? We’ve got you covered! What Is A Print? will give you a concise and digestible overview of printmaking and its history. Check out the blurbs below for more detail.
The exhibitions will be on view through Thursday, May 14, 2026. The Mathis Gallery is open Monday-Thursday, 10:30am-2:30pm (except during University breaks and unscheduled closures).
What Is A Print?
Prints – images made through a process of transferring ink from one surface to another – have for two millennia been rich sources of expressive exploration and crucial to the global circulation of images. Until the late-twentieth century, most people experienced visual art primarily through prints. What Is A Print? surveys some of the major print processes represented in the UWM Art Collection, including seminal printmakers like Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt van Rijn, Francisco Goya, and Pablo Picasso. By illuminating some of the complex technical details of printmaking, the exhibition will enable viewers to consider the creative, technical, financial, and social contexts that have shaped its history.
The One-Off Print: Monotypes from the UWM Art Collection
The monotype is a hybrid printmaking process in which ink is transferred from a flat matrix or printing plate onto a sheet of paper. In other words, the monotype is a print form without a permanent matrix: it can only be printed once. The One-Off Print, curated by Art History MA student Emma Erickson, features monotypes from the UWM Art Collection produced by postwar American artists, a time when experimental printmaking was on the rise. The exhibition highlights the versatility of the monotype, a medium that bridges the disciplines of painting, drawing, and printmaking.
