Portland is about to discover one of printmaking’s most enchanting techniques. Prints of Darkness: The Modern Mezzotint opens at the Portland Art Museum on December 19, 2026, and runs through November 14, 2027, in Galleries 006 and 007 — a long, generous run that gives everyone plenty of time to fall in love with it.
Mezzotint is prized for its velvety, dark and subtle surfaces. Unlike most printmaking, the artist works from dark to light, gently coaxing the image out of the shadows. For centuries it was used mainly to reproduce paintings, but in the 20th and 21st centuries it has blossomed into a medium of unique creative expression and bold technical experimentation, often in beautiful color.
Drawn exclusively from the museum’s own collection, the exhibition explores modern and contemporary mezzotints from Eastern and Western Europe, North America and East Asia, in subjects ranging from still life and landscape to pure fantasy. Numerous recent acquisitions will be on view for the very first time. Highlights include work by modern mezzotint revivalists Mario Avati and Hamaguchi Yōzō, alongside contemporary practitioners Hamanishi Katsunori, Judith Rothchild and Carol Wax.
The show is curated by Mary Weaver Chapin, Senior Curator of Prints and Drawings, and Jeannie Kenmotsu, former Arlene and Harold Schnitzer Curator of Asian Art. The Portland Art Museum is at 1219 SW Park Ave. Admission is $27.50 for adults, and children 17 and under always enter free — a perfect winter art outing in the heart of the city.
Photo: Portland Art Museum — Judith Rothchild, Saint-André Hydrangea, 2020, mezzotint on paper
