Black on White: etching in Holland around 1900

5 October 2024 – 12 January 2025 / Dordrecht

The Dordrechts Museum shows the exhibition Zwart op wit, Prentkunst rond 1900. It focuses on the activities of the Nederlandse Etsclub (The Netherlands Etching Club), active from 1885 to 1896. A group of young, ambitious and befriended artists – still in their twenties – exchanged views on art and the future of society. At home and in pubs, the members, the so-called “Tachtigers” (artists from the 1880s) led by Antoon Derkinderen, Jan Veth and Willem Witsen (chairman, secretary and treasurer, respectively) met regularly to work and to have robust discussions. 

Over a period of eleven years the club published ten portfolios containing etchings by such prominent members as Marius Bauer, Barbara van Houten, Eduard Karsen, Phillip Zilcken and Willem de Zwart. In addition, the board organized exhibitions in Amsterdam, The Hague and New York, showing not only work by Dutch contemporaries, but also by international luminaries such as Mary Cassatt, Félix Buhot and James McNeill Whistler, with whom members maintained close ties.

In the exhibition the visitor can learn all about the technique of etching and get up close and personal with the international network of artists around 1900. 

The event is accompanied by a book by Jaap Versteegh and Suzanne Veldink, Zwart op wit. De ‘Peintres graveurs’ van de Nederlandsche Etsclub 1885-1896.

For more information, see the museum’s website.