Getty Presents Lines of Connection: Drawing and Printmaking

The J. Paul Getty Museum presents Lines of Connection: Drawing and Printmaking, a major international loan exhibition of about 70 works on paper exploring the relationship between drawing and printmaking in Western European art from the 16th to 19th centuries.

Organized by the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago, the exhibition will be on view at the Getty Center from July 1 through September 14, 2025. A separate display, unique to the Getty’s presentation will feature the drawings and prints of artist Toba Khedoori, bringing the exhibition’s themes to Los Angeles’s vibrant contemporary art community.

“We are delighted to once again collaborate with the Art Institute of Chicago in bringing together a selection of exceptional works that redefine the relationship between drawing and printmaking,” says Timothy Potts, Maria Hummer-Tuttle and Robert Tuttle Director of the Getty Museum. “No other exhibition has so thoroughly examined their connection, providing a new perspective that will challenge traditional views of both media.”

From about 1400 to 1850, drawings and prints facilitated the production of one another, and each inspired artists to generate new works in the other medium. It was common practice among collectors and specialists to store, view, and study drawings and prints together, sometimes even substituting one for the other. This strong connection stemmed from their material, visual, and kinetic similarities. Both relied on the same material; they used a shared graphic vocabulary; and some of the bodily movements behind the mark-making often corresponded.

Lines of Connection explores the subject according to four different types of relationships between the two media. Before making a print, a designer typically developed ideas in a series of drawings, with the last one containing the final design, or the model, to be transferred onto the printing matrix. Drawings for Prints: Model Behavior will include models produced with different techniques—some that are highly finished, while others less so. In Maarten van Heemskerck’s Judith, the artist’s careful cross-hatching and neat penwork rendered each element of Judith’s triumph, depicting in great detail the heroine holding up a decapitated general’s head and the fortified city in the background. Heemskerck’s detailed work indicated a final model and limited the printer to the same marks when producing a print.

In response to the growing appreciation of drawings and the rise of mass artistic education, printmakers began to imitate drawings to allow for the study of artists’ draftsmanship, to publicize collections, and to provide models suitable for art students to copy. While some prints faithfully replicate their drawn models, many early modern printmakers took liberties and ignored aspects like color and orientation, and some occasionally altered or completed the compositions themselves. Prints After Drawings: To Collect and Train highlights prints such as The Old Shepherd by Anton Maria Zanetti, which was an interpretation of a drawing by Parmigianino. Zanetti developed the composition and used a color palette of pinks and blues instead of browns used in the original work.

While drawings facilitated the making of prints, prints also generated drawings. Copying prints allowed artists to hone a diverse set of skills, and these drawings also served as substitutes for coveted impressions or led to independent works of art that counted on the viewer’s knowledge and ability to recognize the source. Drawings After Prints: To Imitate, Emulate, and Substitute will highlight drawings such as Maurice Roger’s Trompe L’oeil of a Tabletop with Dürer Prints and Printed Matter. This drawing functioned as a trompe l’oeil—French for “deceive the eye.” Because of its realistic style, it tricked viewers into thinking that they were looking at actual prints scattered across a tabletop.

Hybrids: Pushing Against Boundaries will feature works that combine the two media or mimic the appearance of the other. The making of hybrids often entailed experimental methods and great technical difficulties, which gave artists an opportunity to highlight their ingenuity. Featured in this section is Hendrick Goltzius’s A Right Hand. Goltzius challenged the idea that drawings are singular objects by creating two renderings of A Right Hand that are identical except for a calligraphic inscription on one. His intended audience for the drawings would have also known how difficult it was to render the drawing with a quill pen, demonstrating Goltzius’s extraordinary skill.

In addition to the historical works, the Getty exhibition will feature a display by contemporary artist Toba Khedoori. Primarily known for her large-scale drawings on paper prepared in wax, Khedoori has recently immersed herself in printmaking, learning traditional techniques and working closely with master printers at Gemini G.E.L., the renowned artists’ workshop and prints publisher. The installation will explore the connection between drawing and printmaking in Khedoori’s practice and the collaborations that led to the creation of her prints.

“The installation of Khedoori’s works is an invaluable addition to Lines of Connection,” says Edina Adam, assistant curator of drawings at the Getty Museum. “Working with the artist and Gemini on this installation has greatly informed the project. Watching and talking to them not only allowed me to learn about the intricacies of printmaking but also gave me insight into the human component of collaboration.”

Lines of Connection: Drawing and Printmaking is curated by Edina Adam, assistant curator of drawings at the Getty Museum and Jamie Gabbarelli, Prince Trust associate curator of prints and drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago. The co-authored exhibition catalog features four essays by Adam and Gabbarelli and six extended entries entitled “Spotlights” written by curators and conservators at each institution.

To complement the exhibition, the Getty will offer free printmaking workshops and gallery educator-led tours, as well as short gallery presentations by Museum staff trained in printmaking.

The exhibition was on view at the Art Institute of Chicago from March 15 to June 1, 2025.