Graphic design, feminine declination

For a long time, the history of printmaking was told primarily through male figures, from Albrecht Dürer's engravings to Rembrandt's etchings to the modern experiments of the 20th century. Lasting Impressions: Women Printmakers 1900 – Now, at the Victoria and Albert Museum, instead seeks to shift this perspective, focusing on the contribution of female artists to contemporary graphic design over a century. The exhibition brings together works by twenty-five international artists active between 1900 and the present day, using diverse techniques such as woodcut, lithography, silkscreen, engraving, and digital printing. Rather than following a linear chronology, the exhibition connects very different practices, demonstrating how printmaking has been used as a tool for political protest, aesthetic experimentation, feminist activism, and autobiographical narrative. Among the historical figures featured is Käthe Kollwitz, whose engravings dedicated to poverty, war, and labor profoundly influenced early 20th-century European graphic design. Alongside her appear artists such as Faith Ringgold and the Guerrilla Girls collective, who used posters and prints as tools of social and political criticism.