Krannert Art Museum at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign will present "Imagination, Faith, and Desire: Art and Agency in European Prints, 1475-1800," an exhibition of over 100 early modern European prints drawn from private collections. The show, curated by Maureen Warren, runs from September 25 through February 28 and includes works by masters such as Rembrandt, Parmigianino, and Goya, exploring how prints functioned as Europe's first visual mass media.
The exhibition matters because it assembles exceptionally rare and high-quality prints typically reserved for top-tier metropolitan museums, offering the public a once-in-a-career opportunity to view them. It also highlights the transformative role of printmaking in shaping religion, politics, gender norms, and artistic fame—themes that resonate in today's image-saturated world.