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Starting from Scratch showcases more than seventy of the Museum’s finest etchings, demonstrating the ways in which some of history’s most famous artists have embraced the medium to create original and dynamic works of art. Since its inception, many artists—especially painters—have been drawn to etching for the variety of aesthetic effects that could be achieved, as well as the medium’s ability to capture the essence of an artist’s hand in printed form.

Etching’s development in German metal workshops is represented by prints by Daniel Hopfer, who etched armor decoration and inventively applied the technique to printmaking in the early sixteenth-century. Examples by Hopfer’s contemporary, Albrecht Dürer, the first artist of international acclaim to experiment with the process, are also on view.

Expressive line work underscores the drama of Rembrandt van Rijn’s crucifixion scene, The Three Crosses (1653–55), one of his most ambitious prints, while Jacques Callot’s sweeping curves brought the etched line to new levels of virtuosity, as seen in The Siege of Breda (1627), a grand battle map on display at the Museum for the first time. Impressions from Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s Imaginary Prisons (c. 1749) and Francisco Goya’s series Los Disparates (The Disparates) (c. 1813–20) further demonstrate bold explorations of line and tone.

Artists have exploited etching’s tonal potential to evoke qualities of light and atmosphere, visible in James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s Venetian scene, Nocturne (1878), and Camille Pissarro’s Rain Effect (1879). The use of etching to explore thematic variations is illustrated by selections from Pablo Picasso’s Vollard Suite (1930–37) and John Marin’s abstract studies of the Woolworth Building (1913–17).

Prints by Edward Hopper, Jim Dine, and Kara Walker, among others, trace etching’s enduring legacy through the twentieth century to the present day.