Because prints and drawings lend themselves to the rapid transmission of ideas, they have often been used by progressive artists to provoke conversation and promote social change. The National Gallery of Slovenia will present the work of Hinko Smrekar, an illustrator and satirist known for his biting political commentary, who was executed by the Italian fascist government without trial in 1942. Getty’s support of a publication and microsite of his work in English overseen by curator Alenka Simončič will greatly expand access to Smrekar’s contributions and position him among other political artists of the early 20th century.
“Smrekar’s versatility and rich artistic expression set him apart from any particular art movement. Although he mostly lived in Ljubljana and commented on local, Austrian-Hungarian and later Yugoslavian culture, he closely followed world affairs and often titled his works in foreign languages to make them understandable to many,” says Simončič. “Through this project we can admire Smrekar’s courage, honesty and precision as he warned against the permanent faults of human nature, from pride and ignorance to greed and hypocrisy.”
View full descriptions of awarded grants at The Paper Project: Grants Awarded.
2021 Grantees
National Organizations
- Chrysler Museum of Art—For an exhibition on Jacob Lawrence and the Mbari Club, a nexus of cultural activity in post-independence Africa that published the Black Orpheus journal. Project curators: Kimberli Gant (Chrysler) and Ndubuisi Ezeluomba (New Orleans Museum of Art)
- Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum—For a digital project on the sketchbooks of Johannes Stradanus. Project curator: Julia Siemon
- International Print Center New York—For an exhibition and accompanying publication on Margaret Lowengrund, the first woman in the United States to open her own hybrid printmaking workshop/gallery—The Contemporaries gallery. Project curators: Christina Weyl and Lauren Rosenblum
- Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum—For an exhibition and accompanying publication on the travel sketchbooks of Betye Saar. Project curator: Diana Greenwald
- Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) —For an exhibition on two key episodes in 20th-century political printmaking: German Expressionism after World War I and Mexico City’s Taller de Gráfíca Popular. Project curators: Erin Sullivan Maynes and Rachel Kaplan
- MAK Center for Art and Architecture—For an exhibition on collaged mechanical documents, an essential but often unseen medium of 20th-century architectural prints and drawings. Project curator: Sarah Hearne
- Museum of Fine Arts, Boston—For “Digital Koehler,” an online project featuring historical printing techniques and technologies based on a landmark exhibition held at the MFA in 1892. Project curator: Meghan Melvin
- National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution—For a digital project on an album of cut-paper silhouettes by William Bache (1771–1845). Project curator: Robyn Asleson
- Winterthur Museum, Gardens & Library—For a publication and digital project on the Denig Illuminated Manuscript, a key document of early American folk art and religious life. Project curator: Stéphanie Delamaire
International Organizations
- Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Oxford—For a digital project on early modern German drawings. Project curators: Mailena Mallach and An Van Camp
- British Library—Two grants to support the publication of a handbook on the Library’s prints and drawings and an exhibition and catalogue on scientific representations of animals from the 2nd century to the present. Project curators: Felicity Myrone; Cam Sharp Jones and Malini Roy
- City Palace Museum, Maharana of Mewar Charitable Foundation—For an exhibition and publication on 18th-to 20th-century maps and landscapes from Udaipur, India. Project curator: Shailka Mishra
- Fondazione Giorgio Cini—For an exhibition and catalogue on single-leaf woodcuts of the Italian Renaissance at the Musei Civici in Pavia, Italy. Project curators: Laura Aldovini, Ludovica Piazzi, and Silvia Urbini
- Kunstmuseum Basel—For The Acid Lab, an interactive digital experience that explores acid-based etching techniques. Project curator: Marion Heisterberg
- Museum Plantin-Moretus—For an exhibition and publication of Netherlandish and Flemish Old Master drawings. Project curator: Virginie D’haene
- National Gallery of Slovenia—For a publication and digital project on the life and work of satirist Hinko Smrekar. Project curator: Alenka Simončič
- National Portrait Gallery, London—For the conservation and display of works on paper from the Lucian Freud Archive, the largest collection of Freud’s drawings in public hands, when the Gallery reopens in 2023, following a major redevelopment. Project curator: Tanya Bentley
- Royal Museums Greenwich, National Maritime Museum—For a digital project on the drawings of Willem van de Velde the Elder and the Younger. Project curator: Allison Goudie
Learn more about The Paper Project and see past and present grants.