Albrecht Dürer's Material Renaissance - Arts West Gallery exhibition, University of Melbourne

Spinks, J., Champion, M., Gilmore, S. & Zika, C. (2024). Albrecht Dürer's Material Renaissance - Arts West Gallery exhibition, University of Melbourne. [Prints and books]

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Abstract

This exhibition of rare prints and books was based on extensive original research and displayed over 90 rarely-seen items from the University of Melbourne and State Library Victoria collections. Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) shaped the German Renaissance with his unforgettable images. He travelled widely, but belonged to a vibrant network of artists and craftspeople in Nuremberg, a key trading city in the Holy Roman Empire and a centre for religious and intellectual life. Book and print production developed there from the late fifteenth century alongside constant innovation in the city’s craft and manufacturing trades. Dürer first trained as a goldsmith. When he turned to making visual art, his metalworking skills helped him to push printmaking techniques – for engravings, etchings and woodcuts – to new levels of detail and inventiveness, dazzling his contemporaries. Dürer’s interest in the natural world has long been acknowledged, but his fascination with manufactured and designed objects forms a vibrant and newer area of research. Depictions of contemporary cloth and clothing, featherwork, armour, precious metal vessels, measuring instruments, liturgical objects, hourglasses, and books – all objects made in Nuremberg – form part of the ‘material Renaissance’ that is a hallmark of his work and a feature of early print culture. This innovative exhibition invited visitors to peer into Dürer and his contemporaries’ prints and books – objects in their own right – to explore how and why materiality mattered in early modern Europe. Exhibits included Dürer’s Melencolia I engraving, a leaf from the Gutenberg Bible, and some of the most important books and prints of this period, including the famous 1493 Nuremberg Chronicle and Dürer’s own Treatise on Measurement. The exhibition drew upon new and original research funded by the Australian Research Council Discovery Project ‘Albrecht Dürer’s Material World – in Melbourne, Manchester and Nuremberg’ (DP210101623, 2021 – 2025). It was curated by Hansen Associate Professor Jenny Spinks, Dr Matthew Champion, Dr Shannon Gilmore-Kuziow, and Professor Charles Zika, with support from Curatorial Assistant Jenny Smith. For further details see the gallery website: https://arts.unimelb.edu.au/about/arts-west-gallery/past-exhibitions/albrecht-durers-material-renaissance

Collections

School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Research Publications
Minerva Elements Records