The Victoria and Albert Museum has launched a comprehensive free exhibition celebrating the often-overlooked contributions of women to the printmaking industry over the past 125 years. The exhibition, titled "Lasting Impressions: Women Printmakers 1900 - Now," features 25 remarkable female artists whose work spans more than a century, highlighting the significant role women have played in the printing trade since its earliest days.
Unbounded by thematic or stylistic limitations beyond gender and timeframe, the exhibition showcases an extraordinarily diverse collection of printed works. The display presents a broad and engaging survey that ranges from art used as powerful ammunition in political struggles to pieces created purely for beauty, storytelling, or personal expression. This approach allows visitors to experience the full spectrum of women's contributions to printmaking across different eras and artistic movements.
Among the most provocative pieces in the exhibition is a protest banner created by the Guerrilla Girls, a feminist art collective known for exposing inequality within the art world. Their work reveals a striking statistic: while women account for 85 percent of the nude subjects depicted in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Modern Art collection, only 5 percent of the represented artists are women. This powerful piece serves as an especially fitting inclusion for a museum display that interrogates and challenges traditional artistic history narratives.
The exhibition also features historical gems that feel surprisingly contemporary, such as a 1932 lithograph by Pearl Binder depicting theatrical costumers. At first glance, the central figure in Binder's work appears to be absorbed in reading her smartphone, until visitors remember the era and realize she is more likely reading her newspaper or studying her lines. This optical illusion demonstrates how certain human behaviors and postures transcend time periods.
The display champions the pioneering women artists who were commissioned by London Transport's Frank Pick, featuring examples of travel promotion posters designed by Dora Batty and other female artists. During an era when female artists faced significant discrimination and were frequently looked down upon, remarkably, more than a quarter of all London Underground poster designs came from women's hands. This achievement represents a significant breakthrough for women in commercial art and design.
Pushing the boundaries of traditional printmaking, the exhibition embraces the medium in unexpected ways. Notable among these innovative works are Lynne Allen's sculptural 3D printed moccasins, which effectively blur the traditional boundaries between object, craft, and print. These pieces demonstrate how contemporary artists are expanding and redefining what constitutes printmaking in the digital age.
The exhibition "Lasting Impressions: Women Printmakers 1900 - Now" will remain open until September 2026 and offers free admission to all visitors. The display can be found on the Victoria and Albert Museum's second floor, strategically located in the corridor between the jewelry and theater galleries, making it easily accessible during regular museum visits.
