Kids get into Bechtler Museum free for spring break

Kids in grades K-12 (public school, private school, homeschool) get into the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art for free during spring break, which takes place from Friday, March 25th, 2016, through Sunday, April 3rd. They must be accompanied by an adult. Please note that the museum is closed Tuesdays. The Bechtler is at 420 South Tryon Street. Visit the Green, across the street, while you’re there. It’s a popular place for families to unwind.

On exhibit now through June 19th, 2016, is “The Art of the Print”:

Printmaking has long been at the service of other media. In 1516, if a Dutchman in Delft wanted to experience the transcendent beauty of Raphael’s Madonna, newly painted in Piacenza, Italy, a print could offer a hint of its majesty. An 18th-century Londoner finishing up the Grand Tour who wanted to remember Michelangelo’s Pietà would buy a print. Some artists (most famously, Albrecht Dürer and Martin Schongauer) immediately exploited the unique textures and shading offered by woodblocks and engraving plates. Of course, they also benefited from easy sales and wide distribution of their images that the reproductive print offered. Yet, artists interested in the print media for its own ends remained few and far between until the 17th century when a wave of new techniques—mezzotint, aquatint, and in the 19th century, lithography—allowed new tonal subtleties and color. The myriad of printmaking methods multiplied further by combining existing techniques and adding in new technological innovations. Painters and sculptors had a new arena in which to play.