Painterly Printmaking: Mary Nimmo Moran and America's Etching Revival

In 1879, American artist Mary Nimmo Moran (1842–1899) began her first experiments in etching—the medium that would define her career and legacy. Although trained as an oil painter, she turned to etching at a pivotal moment in the medium’s history: beginning in the 1870s, American artists, critics, and collectors enthusiastically embraced etching—a so-called “little media”—as the preeminent printmaking process capable of conveying personal, autographic expression. A movement—at times disparagingly described as a fad or mania—quickly developed around the medium: known as the etching revival, it reached its height in the United States in the 1880s as an increasing number of professional painters began producing original prints. Popularly known as painter-etchers and their works as painter-etchings, they were celebrated for their rejection of mechanical and reproductive processes, such as photography and engraving, instead adopting etching to create boldly expressive works, which nevertheless could be reproduced in multiples. Nimmo Moran was a major contributor to this popular and influential movement, and critics praised the artist for her technical expertise and inventive approach to printmaking. Focusing on her material manipulations, this talk will examine the ways in which she successfully experimented with tools, techniques, inks, and papers to create etchings that surpassed her contemporaries in, as one critic wrote, “painter-like qualities.” Moreover, I will explore how the increased popularity of “little media” offered women artists unprecedented opportunities to contribute to modern artistic movements and, as in the case of Nimmo Moran, become leading innovators in the field.