Directory of Research and Expertise

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Research Summary and Profile

Research interests:

History of art, History of the book

Regions:

Europe

Summary of research interests and expertise:

Dr Elizabeth Savage FSA FRHistS FHEA is Senior Lecturer in Book History and Communications, School of Advanced Study, and Head of Academic Research Engagement, Senate House Library, at University of London. In 2023/24, she is Virtual Fellow at Linda Hall Library, Kansas City. In 2020–22, she was Honorary Fellow, Centre for the Study of the Book, Bodleian Libraries, Oxford University. She explores how information was printed in Europe 1400–1600, especially in colour, notably by exploring library and museum collections, recreating techniques at historically appropraite printing presses, and collaborating with heritage scientists.

Her research into pre-industrial European printing techniques across text and image, especially for colour, has won awards including the Schulman and Bullard Article Prize, the Wolfgang Ratjen-Preis for ‘distinguished research in graphic arts', and honours from the Bibliographical Society of America and the American Printing History Association. Her current projects include a British Academy/Leverhulme-funded exploration of the earliest colour-printed wallpapers printed in Europe, from the 1550s, and a Bibligraphical Society Major Grant to carbon-date late medieval and early modern woodblocks for printing.

Her latest book is Early Colour Printing: German Renaissance Woodcuts at the British Museum (2021). She co-edited Printing Colour 1400–1700: Histories, Techniques, Functions and Receptions (2014), which won an IFPDA Book Prize honourable mention. Her next book is under contract with the British Academy/Oxford University Press. Her next books are Printing Colour 1700–1830: Histories, Techniques, Functions and Receptions, which she edited with Margaret Morgan Grasselli (forthcoming early 2024) and Printing Things: Blocks, Plates, and Other Objects that Printed, 1400–1900, which she edited with Femke Speelberg (forthcoming late 2024), both in Proceedings of the British Academy Proceedings for Oxford University Press. She regularly curates and contributes to exhibitions, including at the British Museum, London, and Musée du Louvre, Paris.

Her major public talks include the 2021 Frederik Muller Lecture and a keynote at Society for Authorship, Reading and Publishing (SHARP) 2022. She has served on a number of committees and juries for scholarly societies, including the Printing Historical Society and Association of Print Scholars.

She supervises PhDs on the history of printing techniques, the history of collections (especially amassed by women), and the history of prints and books in pre-industrial Europe. Her current PhD candidates' theses include collection-based funded projects in collaboration with heritage collections, including the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, and the Royal College of Physicians, London.

Her object- and printing-based teaching for London Rare Books School (LRBS) and the Institute of English Studies MA/MRes includes modules on:

- Gutenberg's Bible: Back to the Evidence

- Incunabula (and other fifteenth-century European print cultures)

- Towards a History of Relief and Intaglio Print Matrices/Printing Surfaces

- Colour Printing Techniques to 1800

- The Book in the ‘Renaissance’ (co-listed with the Warburg Institute)

- Technologies of the Book

- Research Methodologies and Resources for the History of the Book

- The Book in Early Modern Europe, 1450–1830

- The Book in Early Modern England, 1450–1774

Publication Details

Related publications/articles:

Date	Details
28-Aug-2024	‘Meeting the Gutenberg Bible in a Virtual Reading Room’, SHARP In the Classroom Articles SHARP In the Classroom, 28 August 2024
23-Aug-2024	Review of Edina Adam, William Blake: Visionary and David Bindman and Esther Chadwick, eds, William Blake’s Universe Review In Burlington Magazine 166 (August 2024): 864–7.
01-Mar-2024	‘Berlin’s Woodcuts (and Woodblocks) from 1400 to Today’. Review of Holzschnitt: 1400 bis Heute, ed. Christien Melzer/Georg Josef, in Print Quarterly XLI (March 2024): 48–50 Review
01-Jan-2024	Review of Alexander Samuel Wilkinson, ed., Illustration and Ornamentation in the Iberian Book World, 1450–1800, in Jahrbuch für Kommunikationsgeschichte (2024) Review
05-Jan-2023	Elizabeth Savage/Linda Stiber Morenus, ‘Pre-Industrial Printing Inks, c.1450–1850’, in Conservation of Books, ed. Abigail Bainbridge, Routledge Series in Conservation and Museology (London: Routledge, 2023) Articles
02-Jan-2021	Early Colour Printing: German Renaissance Woodcuts at the British Museum Monographs This richly illustrated publication reproduces and describes effectively every early modern German colour print held at the British Museum. It is one of the world’s most significant collections of these rare milestones of cultural heritage and technology. New photography reveals 150 impressions in jaw-dropping detail, most life-size. Some have never been seen in public or reproduced. It is the first major study of the first wave of German colour printing. It spans medieval printing in the late 1400s through the Renaissance and Reformation of the 1500s. Early Colour Printing features masterpieces by leading figures like Erhard Ratdolt, Lucas Cranach, Hans Baldung Grien, and Hans Burgkmair, as well as unfairly overlooked entrepreneurs and innovators like Erasmus Loy (and his daughter Anna). Their breakthroughs reproduced artworks and simplified astronomical calculations. They created trends in interior design and signalled ‘red-letter days’. They helped musicians sight-read and they colour-coded metals for goldsmiths. These diverse new functions and markets might seem unrelated. But they are connected, and they cannot be understood in isolation. From artworks to missals, icons to wallpapers, this book breaks new ground by revealing the fascinating underlying technologies that enabled the production of these colour-printed objects. The many inventions of colour printing in the German-speaking lands began with medieval novel solutions. They were devised long before colour printing inks could be formulated. Then, colour printing techniques transformed how printed material could be used during the technological and cultural revolutions of the sixteenth century. Later designers and artists around Europe celebrated these techniques’ heritage for centuries, from the ‘Dürer Renaissance’ until chromolithography revolutionised the print market in the nineteenth century. Early Colour Printing captures this story in rich detail. It sets the stage for second wave of German colour woodcut, which was triggered by the Expressionist revival at the turn of the twentieth century. Thoroughly researched and engagingly written, this collection guide will be a standard reference on German graphic art, early modern visual culture, and the history of printing itself. Early Colour Printing: German Renaissance Woodcuts at the British Museum offers significant new research, including previously unidentified examples of early modern colour-printing. Some are believed to be unique in the world; others were made decades before the landmark invention of colourful chiaroscuro woodcut in Italy in 1516. By modelling a printer- and technology-based approach to the history of printing, it contributes to scholarship by pinpointing attributions to printers—not just to artists or designers. In doing so, it lays the groundwork for a new understanding of the history of print, one that encompasses all forms of printed material. This publication derives from an exhibition at the British Museum curated by Elizabeth Savage.   REVIEWS The Book Collector (Simon Beattie); Burlington Magazine (Hans Jakob Meier); Fine Books Magazine (Alex Johnson); Multiples (Chris Pig); Peregrinations (Suzanne Karr Schmidt)
01-Nov-2019	Hans Wechtlin, Christus am Kreuz mit Maria, Johannes und Maria Magdalena, um 1510’ / ‘Hans Baldung Grien, Christus am Kreuz zwischen Magdalena, Johannes und Maria, um 1510–12 Chapters in Hans Baldung Grien. Heilig | unheilig, ed. Holger Jacob-Friesen (Karlsruhe: Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe; Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2019), 296–297, nos. 136–137
01-Nov-2019	Review of Lucy Peltz, Facing the Text: Extra-Illustration, Print Culture and Society in Britain 1769–1840 Review L’Illustrazione 3 (2019): 122–26
01-Oct-2019	Identifying Hans Baldung Grien’s colour printer, c.1511–12 Journal articles Burlington Magazine 161 (October 2019): 830-839 Five colour woodblock prints designed by Hans Baldung Grien in Strasbourg in the second decade of the sixteenth century are exceptional both in his work and for their time. Analysing them in the context of contemporary book printing in the city helps to explain their technical excellence, allows their printer to be identified as Johann Schott and provides a firm dating.
01-Sep-2019	Review of Edward H. Wouk, Frans Floris (1519/20–1570): Imagining a Northern Renaissance Review Oud Holland Reviews (September 2019)
01-Jun-2019	Dating of a Unique Six-Colour Relief print by Historical and Archaeometric Methods Journal articles Armida Sodo/Ludovica Ruggiero/Stefano Ridolfi/Elizabeth Savage/Luca Valbonetti/Maria Antonietta Ricci. European Physics Journal Plus 134, special issue: Scientific Research in Conservation Science (June 2019): 276 (9 pp.)
01-Dec-2018	Anicius Manlius Boethis, De consolatione philosophiae Chapters in Colard Mansion: Incunabula, Prints and Manuscripts in Medieval Bruges, ed. Evelien Hauwaerts/Evelien de Wilde/Ludo Vandamme (Heule: Snoeck; Bruges: Groeninge Museum, 2018), 83
01-Dec-2018	Alain Chartier, Le Quadrilogue invective Chapters in Colard Mansion: Incunabula, Prints and Manuscripts in Medieval Bruges, ed. Evelien Hauwaerts/Evelien de Wilde/Ludo Vandamme (Heule: Snoeck; Bruges: Groeninge Museum, 2018), 84
01-Nov-2018	Review of Suzanne Karr Schmidt, Interactive and Sculptural Printmaking in the Renaissance Review Burlington Magazine (November 2018): 980–981
01-Oct-2018	Hans Burgkmair, L’Emperor Maximilian à cheval Chapters Séverine Lepape/Elizabeth Savage, in Gravure en clair-obscur. Cranach, Raphaël, Rubens, ed. Séverine Lepape (Paris: Musée du Louvre/Liénart, 2018), 36–39
01-Oct-2018	Hans Burgkmair, Couple d’amants surprise par la Mort Chapters Séverine Lepape/Elizabeth Savage, in Gravure en clair-obscur. Cranach, Raphaël, Rubens, ed. Séverine Lepape (Paris: Musée du Louvre/Liénart, 2018), 44–45
01-Sep-2018	Review of Susanna Berger, Philosophy of Art Review Renaissance Quarterly 71/3 (September 2018), 1165–1166
01-Jun-2018	Review of Kathryn M. Rudy, Rubrics, Images and Indulgences in Late Medieval Netherlandish Manuscripts, Piety in Pieces, and Postcards on Parchment Review The Library (June 2018), 231–232
01-Apr-2018	Une histoire des matériaux et techniques de l’impression en couleur en Occident Chapters Elizabeth Savage/Ad Stijnman, Under the Rainbow, ed. Tatiana Rihs (Lausanne: Ecole cantonale d’art de Lausanne, 2018), 171–198
01-Apr-2018	A History of the Materials and Techniques of Colour Printing in the West Chapters Elizabeth Savage/Ad Stijnman, Under the Rainbow, ed. Tatiana Rihs (Lausanne: Ecole cantonale d’art de Lausanne, 2018), 199–222
01-Mar-2018	Hans Burgkmair’s Colour Prints: An Overview Chapters Hans Burgkmair. Neue Forschungen, Veröffentlichungen des Zentralinstituts für Kunstgeschichte in München, ed. Wolfgang Augustyn/Manuel Teget-Welz (Passau: Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte/Dietmar Klinger, 2018), 333–366
01-Mar-2018	Review of Eric Marshall White, Editio princeps, Review Journal of the Printing Historical Society New Series 28 (March 2018): 97–98
01-Mar-2018	Printing Music: Technical Challenges and Synthesis, 1450–1530 Chapters Elisabeth Giselbrecht/Elizabeth Savage, Early Music Printing in German-Speaking Lands, ed. Elisabeth Giselbrecht/Andrea Lindmayr-Brandl/Grantley McDonald (London: Ashgate, 2018), 84–99, plates 1–17
01-Jan-2018	Review of Tributes to Jean Michel Massing, ed. Mark Stocker/Phillip G. Lindley Review Burlington Magazine CLX (January 2018): 74
01-Jan-2018	Review of Tributes to Jean Michel Massing, ed. Mark Stocker/Phillip G. Lindley Review Burlington Magazine CLX (January 2018): 74
14-Nov-2017	Frisket Sheet for Printing Text in Red Ink Articles Leiden Special Collections Blog, 14 Nov 2017
01-Apr-2017	Early Modern Frisket Sheets: A Regularly Updated Census Research aids  BibSite: The Bibliographical Society of America, first version 2015
01-Apr-2017	Die Farbholzschnitte von Lucas Cranach dem Älteren: Werke und Druckzustände Chapters In Lucas Cranach der Älter. Meister Marke Moderne, ed. Gunnar Heydenreich, Daniel Görres and Beate Wismer (Düsseldorf: Museum Kunstpalast, 2017), 58–62
01-Aug-2016	A Renaissance Art History of the Blockbook Canticum canticorum (review of Marilyn Aronberg Lavin, An Allegory of Divine Love) Review  In Print Quarterly 34/3: 319-324
01-Jan-2016	The Mystery of the Scrappy Fragments: Untangling Robert Steele's Discovery of Frisket Sheets Journal articles Printing History (American Printing History Association) New Series 19 (Jan 2016): 16-32
01-Sep-2015	'Material Colours': The Heritage of Colour Knowledge in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Printshops Chapters Ad Stijnman/Elizabeth Savage, in Colour Histories: Science Art, and Technology in the 17th and 18th Centuries, ed. Magdalena Bushart and Friedrich Steinle (Berlin/New York: De Gruyter, 2015), 95-113, 364-369
01-Aug-2015	A Historical Overview of Printed Colour before 1700 Ad Stijnman/Elizabeth Savage, in Ad Stijnman/Elizabeth Savage, eds., Printing Colour 1400-1700: Histories, Techniques, Functions and Receptions, Library of the Written World: Handpress World 41, ed. Andrew Pettegree (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 1-7
01-Aug-2015	The Materials and Techniques of Early Colour Printing: A General Survey Chapters Ad Stijnman/Elizabeth Savage, in Ad Stijnman/Elizabeth Savage, eds., Printing Colour 1400-1700: Histories, Techniques, Functions and Receptions, Library of the Written World: Handpress World 41, ed. Andrew Pettegree (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 11-22
01-Aug-2015	Colour Printing in Relief before 1700: A Technical History Chapters Elizabeth Savage, in Ad Stijnman/Elizabeth Savage, eds., Printing Colour 1400-1700: Histories, Techniques, Functions and Receptions, Library of the Written World: Handpress World 41, ed. Andrew Pettegree (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 23-41
01-Aug-2015	A Printer's Art: The Development and Influence of Colour Printmaking in the German Lands, c.1476-c.1600 Chapters Elizabeth Savage, in Ad Stijnman/Elizabeth Savage, eds., Printing Colour 1400-1700: Histories, Techniques, Functions and Receptions, Library of the Written World: Handpress World 41, ed. Andrew Pettegree (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 93-102
01-Aug-2015	Printing Colour 1400-1700: Histories, Techniques, Functions and Receptions Edited Book Ad Stijnman/Elizabeth Savage, eds., Printing Colour 1400-1700: Histories, Techniques, Functions and Receptions, Library of the Written World: Handpress World 41, ed. Andrew Pettegree (Leiden: Brill, 2015); reprint 2015. IFPDA Book Awards, Honourable Mention: ‘every dealer, collector, and curator of old master prints will need this volume in their library’ De Boekenwereld: ‘inspiring standard reference work’ Journal of the Printing Historical Society: ‘cri de coeur’ The Library: ‘significant’, ‘major advance in our knowledge’ L’Illustrazione: ‘the most complete panorama…of the current state of research’
01-Jul-2015	Jost de Negker's Woodcut Charles V (1519): An Undescribed Example of Gold Printing Journal articles Art in Print 5/2 (July-Aug 2015): 9-15
01-Mar-2015	New Evidence of Erhard Ratdolt's Working Practices: The After-Life of Two Red Frisket-Sheets from the Missale Constantiense (1505) Journal articles Journal of the Printing Historical Society (Spring 2015): 81-97
01-Dec-2014	Red Frisket Sheets, c. 1490-1700: The Earliest Artefacts of Colour Printing in the West Journal articles Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 108/4 (Dec 2014): 477-522
27-Nov-2014	Art in Books: Lambrecht Hopfer's Crucifixion (c.1525–50) in the Opuscula of Saint Bonaventure (1497) Articles Cambridge University Library Incunabula Project Blog, 27 Nov 2014
01-Jun-2014	Flying Colours Journal articles Apollo (June-July 2014), 44-49
14-Mar-2014	Renaissance Colour Prints at the Royal Academy are Unmissable (review of Renaissance Impressions, Royal Academy of Art, London) Review  The Conversation (2014)
01-Jan-2014	Color Prints before Erhard Ratdolt: Engraved Paper Instruments in Lazarus Beham's Buch von der Astronomie (Cologne: Nicolaus Götz, c. 1476) Journal articles Ad Stijnman/Elizabeth Upper, in Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 89 (2014): 86-105
16-Dec-2013	Printing Colour in Tudor England: A New Exhibition Articles Cambridge University Library Special Collections Blog, 16 Dec 2013, specialcollections.blog.lib.cam.ac.uk/?p=6612#more–6612
01-Dec-2013	Printing the Rainbow (review of Michael Twyman, A History of Chromolithography) Review Apollo (Dec 2013): 112-13
01-Sep-2013	Review of Byron and Politics: 'Born for Opposition' (Maughan Library, Kings College London) Review  SHARP News (Society of the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing) 22/4 (Autumn 2013): 14
01-Jun-2013	White Spirit (review of Victoria George, Whitewash and the New Aesthetic of the Protestant Reformation) Review  Apollo (June 2013): 124-25
01-Jun-2013	Celebrating Maximilian I's Augsburg (review of Gregory Jecman and Freyda Spira, Imperial Augsburg) Review  Print Quarterly 30/2 (June 2013): 183-86
06-Apr-2013	Printing Music and Art Together Articles Elisabeth Giselbrecht/Elizabeth Upper', Renaissance Art and Music, 6 Apr 2013
01-Feb-2013	Crafting Prints (review of Ad Stijnman, Engraving and Etching 1400-2000) Review  Apollo Magazine (Feb 2013): 92-93
10-Oct-2012	Tudor Colour Printmaking Articles Centre for Material Texts Blog, Cambridge University, 10 Oct 2012
01-Sep-2012	Review of Shakespeare: Staging the World (British Museum, London) Review  SHARP News (Society of the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing) 21/4 (Autumn 2012): 18
01-Apr-2012	The Wonders of the Kunstkammer: Hapsburg Collections Come to Cambridge, review of Splendour & Power: Imperial Treasures from Vienna (Fitzwilliam Museum) Review Bulletin of the Society for Renaissance Studies (Apr 2012): 10-13
01-Mar-2012	'Plays of Light and Blazes of Colour (review of Melanie Grimm, et al., Lichtspiel und Farbenpracht) Review Print Quarterly 29 (Mar 2012): 48-49
01-Mar-2012	'Printed Paintings (review of Hercules Segers and his 'Printed Paintings', British Museum, London) Review Apollo (Mar 2012): 178-179
01-Jan-2012	Glittering Woodcuts and Moveable Music: Decoding the Elaborate Printing Techniques, Purpose and Patronage of the Liber selectarum cantionum (1520) Chapters Elisabeth Giselbrecht/Elizabeth Upper, in Senfl-Studien I, ed. Birgit Lodes and Stefan Gasch, 17-67, Wiener Forum für ältere Musikgeschichte 5 (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 2012)
01-Dec-2010	A Happy (Re)marriage (review of Ad Stijnman and Claudia Kleine-Tebbe, Hochzeit von Bild und Buch) Review Print Quarterly 27/4 (Dec 2010): 401
01-Mar-2010	Zao Wou-Ki and the Art of Nature Articles Above 13 (Spring 2010): 166-83
01-Dec-2009	A Visual Timeline for A Heavenly Craft (review of A Heavenly Craft, ed. Daniel De Simone) Review Print Quarterly 26 (Dec 2009): 371-373
01-Dec-2009	Dr Livingstone's Lament: An Unpublished Letter by David Livingstone Articles Above 11 (Winter 2009): 86-87
	Earth Movers: Quaking up Land Art's Legacy of Feminism Articles Bitch 48 (Fall 2010): 36-42

Publications available on SAS-space:

Date	Details
Jan-2019	Dating of a Unique Six-Colour Relief print by Historical and Archaeometric Methods PeerReviewed The aim of this work is the historical and archaeometric investigation of a unique six-colour single-sheet relief print on paper belonging to a private collector. It is undescribed, undated and unsigned, and it depicts Charlemagne enthroned in Aachen Cathedral. The print was tentatively dated to the 16th century based on the style and iconography. This study offers a revised dating based on stylistic analysis of the design and archaeometric investigation of the six printing inks.
Aug-2024	Review of Alexander Samuel Wilkinson, ed., Illustration and Ornamentation in the Iberian Book World, 1450–1800 NonPeerReviewed Elizabeth Savage, review of Alexander Samuel Wilkinson, ed., Illustration and Ornamentation in the Iberian Book World, 1450–1800, in Jahrbuch für Kommunikationsgeschichte 25 (2024): 186–7

Publications available on SAS-space

Research Projects & Supervisions

Research projects:

Details
The Craft of Collecting: Hiero von Holtorp and the Creation of Bibliography Institute of English Studies Project period: 17-Sep-2015 - 16-Sep-2018 Research interests: Early Modern, English Literature, History of art, History of the book
Fladerpapier: Art, Craft, and the Earliest Mass-Produced Wallpaper in the West Institute of English Studies Project period: 31-Aug-2020 - 29-Feb-2024 Research interests: History of the book
Colour-Printed Book Illustrations in Tudor England, 1485–1603 Cambridge University: Munby Fellowship in Bibliography, 2012/13
Early Modern Yellow Text Blocks ongoing
Fladerpapier: Art, Craft, and the Earliest Mass-Produced Wallpaper in the West British Academy/Leverhulme Small Grants (2020–2022)
Printing Colour 1700–1830: Discoveries & Rediscoveries in the Long 18th Century Fritz Thyssen Stiftung: Conference award, co-PI, 2017/18
Revolutions in Print and Print Collecting: The Holtorp Collection University of Manchester: Research Associate, 2014/15
The Craft of Collecting: Hiero von Holtorp and the Creation of Bibliography British Academy: Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2016–2019
The Matrix Reloaded: Establishing Cataloguing and Research Guidelines for Artefacts of Printing in Heritage Collections British Academy: Rising Star Engagement Award (BARSEA), 2017/18
Women’s Ownership of Medical Knowledge in Tudor and Stuart England London Arts & Humanities Partnership: Collaborative Doctoral Award, co-PI, with Royal College of Physicians, 2020–2024

Current PhD topics supervised:

Dates	Details
From: 01-Oct-2022 Until:	Printing Ink Manufacturing in Britain and its Impact on Print Culture and Society, 1850–1900 Ian Dooley: AHRC funded; Institute of English Studies
From: 01-Oct-2022 Until:	The Making of an Idea: Text and Image in Serlio’s Tutte l'opere Katherine Prater, Institute of English Studies
From: 01-Oct-2020 Until:	Early Modern Copper Plates at the Bodleian Libraries Chiara Betti; AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership with the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford University; co-supervised with Alex Franklin
From: 01-Oct-2019 Until:	Women’s Ownership of Medical Knowledge in Tudor and StuartEngland, 1485-1714 Catherine James; Collaborative Doctoral Award with the Royal College of Physicians, through the London Arts & Humanities Partnership; co-supervised with Katie Birkwood
From: 01-Oct-2018 Until:	The Print Collection of Count Saverio Marchese (1757–1833) Krystle Attard Trevisan; advisor: Jean Michel Massing

Available for doctoral supervision: Yes

Professional Affiliations

Professional affiliations:

Name	Activity
Newberry Library	2015/16 Newberry Library-Kress Foundation Fellow
Herzog August Bibliothek	2013/14 Stipendiatin des Landes Niedersachsen
Huntington Library	2015/16 Chandis Securities Fellow
Linda Hall Library
Centre for the Study of the Book, Bodleian Libraries, Oxford University	2020/21 Honourary Fellow
University of Leiden	2019/2020 Scaliger Fellow/Visiting Researcher
Society of Antiquaries	2019-present, Fellow
Association of Print Scholars	2017–2019, Founding jury member, Grants Program; 2023–25, member, Grants Committee
Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte	2017/18; 2018/19 Wolfgang Ratjen Fellow
Association of Print Scholars	2020 Schulman and Bullard Article Prize
Bibliographical Society of America	2014 New Scholar
American Printing History Association	2014 Mark Samuels Lasner Fellow in Printing History
British Museum of Printing	Steering Group, Higher Education Liaison
Books of Prints Working Group	member
Royal Society of Arts	2019–present, Fellow
Royal Historical Society	2019–present: Fellow; 2016–2019: Member
International Council of Museums	2015–present, Member, UK Committee
Printing Historical Society	2016/17–present, Publications Committee
Printing Historical Society	2017/18–present, Grants & Prizes Committee

Collaborations:

Name	Type	Activity	Start date	End date
Hans Baldung Grien heilig | unheilig	curated by HolgerJacob-Friesen/Julia Carrasco (Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, 30 November 2019–8 March 2020)	exhibition	30-Nov-2019	08-Mar-2020
Gravure en clair-obscur. Cranach, Raphaël, Rubens	curated by Séverine Lepape (Musée du Louvre, Paris, 18 October 2018–14 January 2019)	exhibition	18-Oct-2018	14-Jan-2019
Cranach. Meister Marke Moderne	curated by Gunnar Heydenreich, Daniel Görres and Beat Wismer (Museum Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, 8 April–30 July 2017)	exhibition	08-Apr-2017	30-Jul-2017
Making Knowledge through Word, Image, Print: Premodern History of Multimedia Science 1450-1800	member		01-Sep-2022	30-Sep-2024
Haute Lecture by Colard Mansion: Innovating Text and Image in Medieval Bruges	curated by Ludo Vandamme, Evelien Hauwaerts, and Evelien de Wilde (Groeningemuseum, Bruges, 1 March–3 June 2018)	exhibition	01-Mar-2018	03-Jun-2019
Digital Resuscitation: The Officina Plantiniana’s Collection of 14,000 Woodblocks		Advisory committee member	01-Apr-2019	01-Apr-2021
Graphic Arts Group	Member
Registering the Matrix: Printing Matrices as Sites of Artistic Mediation	advisor	panel convened by Jun Nakamura, Association of Print Scholars session at College Art Association annual conference		01-Aug-2019

Relevant Events

Related events:

Date	Details
10-Oct-2024	Consortium for History of Science, Technology, and Medicine (CHSTM) Consortium for History of Science, Technology, and Medicine (CHSTM) Co-convenor, Working Group: Colour Studies, https://www.chstm.org/content/color-studies
06-Dec-2023	Colour Printing Ink Matters: Exploring Colour and Chromatic Materialises in Printing Inks in the Late 18th and Early 19th Century Colour Matters (Trinity College, Oxford) Co-author, ‘Colour Printing Ink Matters: Exploring Colour and Chromatic Materialises in Printing Inks in the Late 18th and Early 19th Century’
09-Sep-2022	‘Celebrating the 9,000,000th Acquisition: 900 Woodblocks from the Propaganda Fide Press’, Hanes Lecture in Bibliography, University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill The Rare Book Collection’s long-running lecture series returns with a talk commemorating the University Libraries’ 9 millionth volume, the woodblock archive of the Propaganda Fide Press. Dr. Elizabeth Savage will highlight her groundbreaking work on color printing and share her expertise in the study of printing surfaces. The Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has just announced a landmark ‘volume’ for its 9,000,000th acquisition: nearly 1,000 woodblocks, most wrapped in sheet of paper with an identifying impression. They were produced for the press of Propaganda Fide, the Roman Catholic Church’s evangelisation arm, between its foundation in 1626 and c.1850. This acquisition contributes to an internationally significant research trend to understand ‘printing things’, such as woodblocks and copper plates, as cultural heritage objects in and of themselves—independent of the materials they were used to print. This talk introduces what this collection of centuries-old woodblocks can reveal today, as well as why this kind of collection is so important for the future of book history and the historical humanities more broadly.
12-Jul-2022	‘The Power of the Printed Word beyond the Book in Incunable Europe’, keynote at Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing, annual conference, Amsterdam In the study of the history of the book, the terms ‘book’ and ‘text’ have often been used interchangeably. Even the neo-Latin term ‘incunabula’, or ‘in the cradle’, meaning books from the infancy of printing, was first presented as ‘incunabula typographiae’: the infancy of typography. But many earlier, manually printed images include lettering and text. This talk explores the power of the printed word in late medieval western Europe in print cultures that pre-dated Johannes Gutenberg and his Bible of c.1455. It begins with a woodblock cut c.1370 to produce first words known to have been printed in western Europe, and it continues through the first generations after Gutenberg invented the printing press. By drawing on manually printed words in materials as diverse as single-sheet prints, block-printed textiles, and woodblocks for tattoo designs, it focuses on the power of printed words before and beyond the printed book. Overall, it argues for an expanded, interdisciplinary approach to book and print history, one that considers the full gamut of artefacts of printed texts and images in late medieval western Europe.
29-Jun-2022	London Rare Books School Convenor, special lecture: Sarah Werner, ‘Feminist Bibliographical Praxis‘ Dr Sarah Werner, Feminist Bibliographical Praxis Convened by Dr Elizabeth Savage The study of how books were made and how we interpret the signs of their making has been shaped predominantly by men. And while a feminist approach to book history has been growing, with studies of women in the book trade, as textual scholars, and as librarians increasingly being pursued, we still need a consideration of what a feminist praxis of studying the making of books could be.  The lecture will address the need for a feminist approach to bibliography through the lenses of feminist theory and bibliographical prctices. Arguing that a feminist praxis of bibliography does not focus on the matter that is studied but the approaches to the materials and the questions asked of it, Dr Werner will model a way of teaching and opening up the study of books that attendees will be able to bring to their own research and classrooms. This lecture forms part of the London Rare Books School programme - all are welcome to attend. Dr Sarah Werner (PhD, University of Pennsylvania) is a book historian and digital scholar based in Washington, DC, and the author of Studying Early Printed Books 1450–1800: A Practical Guide and the accompanying resource EarlyPrintedBooks.com
23-Jun-2022	‘The International Trade in Printed Colour, 1400–1600’, keynote at Printing Colour and Colouring Prints in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Europe: Comparative Perspectives, University of Warsaw In the past ten years, it has been accepted that the history of printing is also the history of printing colour. But the history of colour printing is the history of art, the history of books, even the history of fashion, of decorated paper, and so many more kinds of objects. From first time colour was printed in a press in Europe, red text in some early copies of the Gutenberg Bible of c.1455, the trade in these consumer and luxury goods was fully international, far beyond the borders of western Europe.  Focusing on the period 1400–1600, when relief was the dominant technique for printing, this talk explores how the producers, objects, and waste of printed colour circulated in international trade networks, within and beyond Europe. It does so by tracing the paths of individual artworks, books, pieces of waste from colour-printing processes, and textiles across borders.  It calls for the conventional foci of colour print research, late medieval and early modern German, Italian, and Netherlandish artworks, to be contextualised with other forms and sites of colour printing, such as Russian block-printing, and copies in other media, including stained glass and majolica. It concludes by calling for research into the production of colour-printed (including block-printed) materials produced for a European audience in areas subject to 'exploration', colonial control, and missionary conversion projects, including India, New Spain, and China.
23-Jun-2022	‘The International Trade in Printed Colour, 1400–1600’ Printing Colour and Colouring Prints in 15th- & 16th-Century Europe: Comparative Perspectives
23-Jun-2022	Printing Colour and Colouring Prints in 15th- & 16th-Century Europe: Comparative Perspectives University of Warsaw Printing Colour and Colouring Prints in 15th- & 16th-Century Europe: Comparative Perspectives. Keynote: ‘The International Trade in Printed Colour, 1400–1600’
28-May-2022	Workshop: Storylines: Printing Tristram Shandy In this practical workshop, find out what happens when a story breaks free of words. Join expert printmakers at the Bodleian Bibliographical Press to learn first-hand the techniques used in the convention-defying pages of a 250-year old novel. Peter Lawrence (Society of Wood Engravers) will introduce the technique of carving illustrations in wood; paper-marbler Louise Brockman will demonstrate the marbling of a single page; Richard Lawrence and the workshop team will guide you through setting type, and demonstrate the printing of intaglio plates. Particpants must be 18 years of age or older. Presented by Novel Impressions, a project run by Helen Williams (Northumbria University) and funded by the British Academy Rising Star Engagement Awards. It is a series of research- and practice-led events that will create network of early career researchers, printers, and curators producing print workshops for public audiences inspired by eighteenth-century literature. This particular event is supported by the Institute of English Studies, the Bodleian Library, and Book and Print Initiative.
27-May-2022	The Making of Tristram Shandy, joint lecture and object session with Helen Williams & Elizabeth Savage Laurence Sterne’s multi-volume work, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, is one of the most creatively printed novels of the handpress period. Sterne personally intervened in the printing, insisting that each copy have different material features to make readers handle and interpret the text in an entirely new way. Explore the pages of this novel with Helen Williams and Elizabeth Savage, who will guide us through the unique features which bring the book itself into the story. Presented by Novel Impressions, a project run by Helen Williams (Northumbria University) and funded by the British Academy Rising Star Engagement Awards. It is a series of research- and practice-led events that will create network of early career researchers, printers, and curators producing print workshops for public audiences inspired by eighteenth-century literature. This particular event is supported by the Institute of English Studies, the Bodleian Library, and Book and Print Initiative.
17-May-2022	Respondent, History of the Book in Mexico: An Introduction, UNAM UK - Centre for Mexican Studies "Uses of Images in Periodical Publications in Nineteenth-Century Mexico" by María José Esparza Liberal. 'An Introduction to the History of Bibliology in Mexico' With this cycle, we intend to divulge some of the work of bibliology, and book and publishing studies from Mexico to other academic spaces and latitudes. Bibliology is the discipline that studies the book as an object, in its historical and technical aspects; it considers, in history, the materials with which it has been made, its type of binding, its calligraphy, typography and illustrations. Organized by Instituto de Investigaciones Bibliográficas, Seminario Interdisciplinario de Bibliología (SIB), Universidad de Guadalajara (UDG) and Centre for Mexican Studies, UNAM-UK. Academic organizer: Marina Garone Gravier. María José Esparza Liberal, IIE y SIB-IIB UNAM. Researcher at the Institute of Aesthetic Research-UNAM. Her line of research focuses on nineteenth-century art, emphasising artistic productions outside the Academy, such as the presence of travelling artists and the development of lithography and popular engraving in Mexican prints. Member of the Interdisciplinary Seminar of Bibliology since October 11, 2013. -:- "Los usos de la imagen en las publicaciones periódicas mexicanas (siglo XIX)" 'Introducción a la Historia de la Bibliología en México' Con este ciclo queremos difundir una parte del trabajo de bibliología y estudios del libro y la edición de México a otros espacios académicos y a otras latitudes. La bibliología es la disciplina que estudia el libro como objeto, tanto en lo histórico como en lo técnico; considera, en la historia, los materiales con que ha sido confeccionado, su tipo de encuadernación, su caligrafía, tipografía e ilustraciones. Dra. María José Esparza Liberal, IIE y SIB-IIB UNAM. Investigadora del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas-UNAM. Su línea de investigación se centra en el arte del siglo XIX en general, poniendo especial énfasis en las producciones artísticas al margen de la Academia, como la presencia de los artistas viajeros y el desarrollo de la litografía y el grabado popular en los impresos mexicanos. Miembro del Seminario Interdisciplinario de Bibliología desde el 11 de octubre de 2013. - - - ?? Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UNAMUK/? ?? Twitter: https://twitter.com/unam_uk? ?? Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/unam_uk/? ?? Web: http://unitedkingdom.unam.mx/
15-Apr-2022	Linda Hall Library Lates: After Hours with Erhard Ratdolt  European printers of the fifteenth century were working with what was, to them, an experimental technology.  These early print workers helped define what a printed book could look like, eventually re-creating a number of features that were originally left to scribes. One of the most challenging to execute was printing in more than one color. Indeed, Johannes Gutenberg tried and almost immediately abandoned two-color printing in his 42-line bible! Though we normally associate color printing with art or even biology, the very first two-color woodcut prints were a striking series of eclipse diagrams, executed in Erhard Ratdolt's Venice workshop in 1482. Throughout Ratdolt's remarkable career, he mastered a color printing process that remained in common use for hundreds of years. His ambitious printing program innovated with color to produce clearer scientific diagrams, and successfully produced two and even three-color printed text, images, music, initials, and calendars.   Join scholar and printer Elizabeth Savage and the Library's Assistant Curator of Rare Books & Manuscripts, Jamie Cumby on a journey through Ratdolt's experiments in color printing, as told through copies in the Library's collection.
22-Feb-2022	‘Teaching with Printing Plates and Blocks’: Copper Plates Unfolded: ECR Multidisciplinary Masterclass on Printing Plates organised by Chiara Betti, Oxford Unviersity
21-Feb-2022	‘Early Colour Printing: German Renaissance Woodcuts at the British Museum’: Graphic Arts Group, British Museum/Courtauld Institute of Art
13-Dec-2021	Bibliographical Society: ‘German Renaissance Woodcuts at the British Museum’ In the last ten years, art historians have begun to recognise the significance of colour in print history—but the role of printed colour in books has been overlooked. This lecture offers a new approach, one centred on printers, based on a survey of the British Museum’s holdings of German prints, ephemera, broadsides, and books printed in 1450–1600. The lecture will be followed by the launch of Early Colour Printing: German Renaissance Woodcuts at the British Museum (Paul Holberton Publishing, in association with the British Museum, 2021).
13-Dec-2021	Bibliographical Society: ‘German Renaissance Woodcuts at the British Museum’ In the last ten years, art historians have begun to recognise the significance of colour in print history—but the role of printed colour in books has been overlooked. This lecture offers a new approach, one centred on printers, based on a survey of the British Museum’s holdings of German prints, ephemera, broadsides, and books printed in 1450–1600. The lecture will be followed by the launch of Early Colour Printing: German Renaissance Woodcuts at the British Museum (Paul Holberton Publishing, in association with the British Museum, 2021).
15-Sep-2021	Frederik Muller Lecture in Book History, University of Amsterdam: ‘Where is Colour in Book History’? Print heritage is not black-and-white; it only seems to be. In the last ten years, a wave of publications and exhibitions has transformed the history of prints by revealing that art history has ‘erased’ colour in prints since the field developed 300 years ago. It is now established that colour-printed images were far more common than had been thought possible: they communicated ideas, clarified scientific knowledge, and aided religious devotion, for example. But new research reveals that the history of colour printing is centred in books, not artworks, and that book history has similarly been ‘bleached’ by academic conventions, collecting practices, and cataloguing protocols. This talk is a call to bring the colour revolution from printed imagery to texts. By exploring the role of printers (not designers) and focusing on varied kinds of content including texts and diagrams, it lays the groundwork for a parallel, vibrant transformation of the history of books in pre-industrial Europe. Dr Elizabeth Savage is Senior Lecturer in Book History and Communications, Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London, and Honourary Fellow, Centre for the Study of the Book, Bodleian Libraries, Oxford University. Her research into pre-industrial European printing techniques across text and image, especially for colour, has won awards including the 2020 Schulman and Bullard Article Prize. Her latest book is Early Colour Printing: German Renaissance Woodcuts at the British Museum (2021). She regularly curates and contributes to exhibitions, most recently at the Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe and Musée du Louvre. She teaches at London Rare Books School.
30-Jan-2020	Oxford Bibliographical Society & Ashmolean Museum: ‘Hans Baldung (Grien) and Johann Schott: Rediscovering the Most Prolific Colour Printer of the Holy Roman Empire, 1510–1530’, lecture + object session Lincoln College, Lower Lecture Room, at 5.30 p.m. PRECEDED BY A SPECIAL VIEWING OF PRINTS IN THE NEW DOUCE ROOM, ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM, AT 3.50 P.M. Please contact the OBS Secretary for further information (secretary@oxbibsoc.org.uk)
28-Nov-2019	Mysteries of Printing the Book of St Albans Print and Book Initiative, School of Advanced Study, University of London
18-Jul-2019	Finding Hans Baldung Grien’s Colour Printer Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, Munich
03-Jul-2019	Convenor, ‘Five Centuries of the Nuremberg Chronicle’ masterclass with David McKitterick, Institute of English Studies/Senate House Library
03-Jul-2019	London Rare Books School Annual Lecture: David McKitterick, Books for Breakfast: Mid-Victorian Collecting, Changing Tastes and Different People Institute of English Studies
26-Jun-2019	Writing Women: Reviving Kana Shodo (‘Woman-Hand’), a Forgotten Female Script: Lecture & Demonstration by Kaoru Akagawa, Master of Japanese Calligraphy Book and Print Initiative, School of Advanced Study. Official Event of Japan-UK Season of Culture 2019-2020 & National Writing Day 2019
23-Apr-2019	Hands-on Workshop: Reconstructing the Colour-Printing the Book ofSt Albans Utrecht Centre for Medieval Studies
23-Apr-2019	Printing Colour in Late Medieval England: The Baffling “Craft” of the Book of St Albans (1486)’, Utrecht Centre for Medieval Studies
10-Apr-2019	Original Revivals: New Old Master Colour Prints for the Collecting Market in the Long Eighteenth Century  Printing Colour 1700–1830: Discoveries, Rediscoveries and Innovations in the Long Eighteenth Century, School of Advanced Study, University of London
26-Mar-2019	Historical and Chemical-Physics Characterisation of a Previously Unknown, Unique, Six-Colour Relief Print  Armida Sodo/Ludovica Ruggiero/Stefano Ridolfi/Elizabeth Savage/Luca Valbonetti/Maria Antonietta Ricci, at Innovation in Art Research and Technology (InART), Parma
30-Jan-2019	Convenor, Restitution and Re-education: Postwar Cultural Policy for/in Germany: Sources and Methodology Masterclass with Iris Lauterbach. Institute of English Studies + Warburg Institute + Institute of Historical Research
30-Jan-2019	Lecture + book launch: Iris Lauterbach, ‘The Central Collecting Point in Munich: A New Beginning for the Restitution and Protection of Art’ Institute of English Studies/Warburg Institute/Institute of Historical Research
28-Nov-2018	‘Finding Hans Baldung Grien’s Colour Printer’, Work in Progress Seminar, Institute of English Studies
18-Oct-2018	‘Identifying Hans Baldung’s Colour Printer, c.1511–12’, Hans Baldung Grien. Neue Perspektiven auf sein Werk, Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe
07-Sep-2018	'The Advent of Colour Printing an Illustrated Talk on the Book of St Albans’, St Albans Museum
28-Jun-2018	Panel: Science and Knowledge. Multiplied and Modified: Reception of the Printed Image in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries, University of Warsaw/National Museum in Warsaw
10-Apr-2018	Printing Colour 1700–1830: Discoveries and Rediscoveries in the Long Eighteenth Century (IES) Eighteenth-century book and print cultures are considered to be black and white (with a little red). Colour-printed material, like William Blake's visionary books and French decorative art, is considered rare and exceptional. However, recent discoveries in archives, libraries and museums are revealing that bright inks were not extraordinary. Artistic and commercial possibilities were transformed between rapid technical advances around 1700 (when Johannes Teyler and Jacob Christoff Le Blon invented new colour printing techniques) and 1830 (when the Industrial Revolution mechanised printing and chromolithography was patented). These innovations added commercial value and didactic meaning to material including advertising, books, brocade paper, cartography, decorative art, fashion, fine art, illustrations, medicine, trade cards, scientific imagery, texts, textiles and wallpaper. The saturation of some markets with colour may have contributed to the conclusion that only black-and-white was suitable for fine books and artistic prints. As a result, this printed colour has been traditionally recorded only for well-known ‘rarities’. The rest remains largely invisible to scholarship. Thus, some producers are known as elite ‘artists’ in one field but prolific ‘mere illustrators’ in another, and antecedents of celebrated ‘experiments’ and ‘inventions’ are rarely acknowledged. When these artworks, books, domestic objects and ephemera are considered together, alongside the materials and techniques that enabled their production, the implications overturn assumptions from the historical humanities to conservation science. A new, interdisciplinary approach is now required. Following from Printing Colour 1400-1700, this conference will be the first interdisciplinary assessment of Western colour printmaking in the long eighteenth century, 1700–1830. It is intended to lead to the publication of the first handbook colour printmaking in the late hand-press period, creating a new, interdisciplinary paradigm for the history of printed material.
01-Dec-2017	ECR Training Day: Researching Print Matrices/Printing Surfaces This free, hands-on, object-based training day will introduce 10 ECRs to the research of historical matrices/printing surfaces (e.g. cut woodblocks, etched metal plates, litho stones). The emphasis is pre-1830. By analysing the objects and resulting impressions, participants will learn how to describe them; identify how they were made, used and copied; relate them to printed content; and use them as primary material in their own research. The interdisciplinary remit includes text and image, as well as decorations, initials, medicine, music, mathematical symbols, scientific imagery, and more. This event is the first application of a new research framework, which will later be published open access. Participants will learn new research skills and, through their feedback, help shape the future of research in fields related to print heritage. The training is convened by Elizabeth Savage and facilitated by Giles Bergel and Roger Gaskell.
22-Sep-2017	The Matrix Reloaded: Establishing Cataloguing & Research Guidelines for Artefacts of Printing Images The material turn in fields that rely on printed matter has led to interest in how those texts and images were—and are—produced. Those objects, including cut woodblocks, etched/engraved metal plates, and lithographic stones, could be fundamental to research. Tens of thousands survive from the last 500 years, but the vast majority are inaccessible because they do not fit into the cataloguing structures and controlled vocabularies used by the libraries, archives and museums that hold them. Those that are accessible tend to be under-used, as few researchers are equipped to understand them or communicate about them across disciplinary boundaries. Even the most basic term is debated: to book historians/in libraries, pieces of type are multiples cast from a matrix (mould); to artists and art historians/in museums, the resulting types are the matrices (the sheets printed from them are the multiples). As new possibilities to catalogue and digitise these artefacts are revealing their research potential, a common framework could advance knowledge of image-printing processes and images’ role in the print trade. This twelve-month project will create a research network and distil a single, interdisciplinary best practice from existing standards across disciplines and heritage collections to train researchers to engage with them. As a precondition for this training is consensus on terminology, methodology and best practice, (1) an international, interdisciplinary working group will be formed. It will agree on recommendations following (2) a conference and (3) this closed summit in September 2017. The aim of BARSEA scheme is to cascade benefits to early career researchers, so this framework will be put into practice at (4) a training session for ECRs in December 2017, refined, and (5) published open access in March 2018 so that researchers in many places and disciplines can use these objects in their research from the start of their academic careers. This research is supported by a British Academy Rising Star Engagement Award.
21-Sep-2017	Fabric-Covered Woodblocks Printed with “Oil Paints” in Late Medieval England?  Blocks Plates Stones: Matrices/Printing Surfaces in Research and Collections, Courtauld Institute of Art
21-Sep-2017	Blocks Plates Stones: Matrices/Printing Surfaces in Research and Collections (Courtauld Institute/British Academy) The material turn in fields that rely on historical printed matter has led to interest in how those texts and images were—and are—produced. Those objects, including cut woodblocks, etched and engraved metal plates, and lithographic stones, could be fundamental to research. Tens of thousands survive from the last 500 years, but the vast majority are inaccessible because they do not fit into the cataloguing structures and controlled vocabularies used by the libraries, archives and museums that hold them. Those that are accessible tend to be under-used, as few researchers are equipped to understand them or communicate about them across disciplinary boundaries. Even the most basic term is debated: in book research, a matrix is the mould for casting pieces of type; in art research, each resulting type is a matrix (and the sheets printed from them are the multiples). As new possibilities to catalogue and digitise these artefacts are revealing their research potential, it is essential to establish how they can best be made available and how they can be used in research. This deeply interdisciplinary conference will survey the state of research into cut woodblocks, intaglio plates, lithographic stones, and other matrices/printing surfaces. It will bring together researchers, curators, librarians, printers, printmakers, cataloguers, conservators, digital humanities practitioners, and others who care for or seek to understand these objects. The discussion will encompass all media and techniques, from the fifteenth century through the present.
15-Sep-2017	Aberystwyth Bibliographical Group: ‘Early Colour Printing and Book Illustration’, Symposium
31-Aug-2017	Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Gjøvik: Printing, Colour, Design: Historical Perspectives: ‘Relief and Intaglio Colour Printing Techniques before the 19th Century’
21-Jun-2017	Panel: People of the Book, The Book in the Low Countries: New Perspectives, Hidden Collections, Institute of Historical Research
06-Apr-2017	Prints in Books: The Materiality, Art History and Collection of Illustrations (Association of Annual Art Historians annual conference) Book illustrations, especially from the hand-press period (1450–1830), are an essential but traditionally overlooked source of art historical information. Although the hierarchies of fine art over popular art are dissolving, and modern disciplinary distinctions between text and image (or art and book) are giving way to cross-disciplinary and holistic approaches to printed material, printed images that happen to be inside books often fall outside the remits of art historical, literary, bibliographical and material research.  One reason is that practical and academic barriers impede access to the art historical information that book illustrations can provide. Due to incompatible cataloguing standards adopted by libraries and art museums, researchers can struggle to identify book illustrations across collections. Cataloguing protocols may reduce hundreds of significant woodcuts in a book to the single word ‘illustrated’; some world-leading graphic art digitisation initiatives exclude book illustrations. As the global digitised corpus expands, will book illustrations be more represented in print scholarship or will they continue to fall into the gap between art and book? As material objects and visual resources, should they be considered bibliographical, art historical or iconographical material? And how do such classifications influence their interpretation?  This interdisciplinary panel seeks to establish a platform for discussion about the position of printed book illustrations in graphic art scholarship. Theoretical and object-based papers related to any aspect of collecting, cataloguing and interpreting printed book illustrations, broadly defined, are welcome, as are papers that explore the materiality, iconography, historiography or art history of printed pictures inside books.
31-Mar-2017	Philadelphia Museum of Art and Kislak Center for Special Collections, University of Pennsylvania: ‘Paper, Ink, and Fabric? Illustrating the Book of St Albans, 1486’, Objects of Study: Paper, Ink, and the Material Turn
12-Dec-2016	Manuscripts in the Making: Art and Science, Cambridge University/Fitzwilliam Museum: 'Printing Fabric with “Oil Paints” in Late Medieval England?'
30-Sep-2016	Kislak Center for Special Collections, University of Pennsylvania: ‘The Language of Scientific Illustrations: Cross-Disciplinary Cataloguing Conundrums’, Materiality of Scientific Knowledge: Image-Text-Book
01-Sep-2016	The 15th Century Conference (Royal Holloway, London): ‘An Unidentified Fifteenth-Century Printing Technique? Reconstructing Workshop Methods for the Book of St Albans, 1486’
01-Jul-2016	King’s College, Cambridge: “Spotlit” Soldiers: Sixteenth-Century Works-in-Progress or Eighteenth-Century Forgeries?’ Retirement Symposium and Celebrations in Honour of Jean Michel Massing
20-Jun-2016	Cambridge University Library: ‘A Previously Undescribed Printing Technique? Re-examining the 1486 Book of St Albans’
12-May-2016	Library of Congress (Washington, DC): Ad Stijnman/Elizabeth Savage, ‘Printing Colour 1400–1700’, lecture and book signing
25-Apr-2016	Huntington Library (San Marino, California): ‘A Previously Undescribed Printing Technique? Re-examining the 1486 Book of St Albans’
20-Mar-2016	University of Reading: ‘Deciphering the First Colour-Printed Images in England: The Book of St Albans, 1486’
23-Feb-2016	Faculty of English, Cambridge University: Renaissance Research Workshop
12-Feb-2016	Courtauld Institute of Art (London): ‘‘Whitewashing’ the Early Modern Print’, Placing Prints: New Developments in the Study of Print, 1400-1800
19-Oct-2015	Oxford Bibliographical Society, Oxford University: ‘“Unmasking" the Most Common Colour-Printmaking Technique in Early Modern Europe'
23-Sep-2015	John Rylands Research Institute, University of Manchester: ‘A Baffling Breakthrough? Making Colour in the 1486 Book of St Albans’, Research Seminars
24-May-2015	Panel: Ephemerality and Durability in Early-Modern Visual and Material Culture, Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities and Trinity Hall, Cambridge
26-Mar-2015	Renaissance Society of America/Historians of Netherlandish Art (Berlin): 'Frankfurt Printers and the Market for Colour Prints in the Sixteenth Century', Frankfurt and the Art Market in the Sixteenth Century: Prints and Books
20-Jan-2015	Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge: 'The Many Inventions of Colour Printing: Art, Books and Ephemera, 1470-1600', Comparative Social and Cultural History Seminar, Faculty of History
11-Dec-2014	Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte (Munich): 'Burgkmairs Farbholzschnitte', Hans Burgkmair: Neue Forschungen zu einem Künstler der deutschen Renaissance, 11-13 Dec (unable to attend)
13-Nov-2014	St Bride Institute (London): 'Manuscript to Press to Binding: Red Frisket Sheets and the Creation of Colour Printing, c.1490-1630', Landmarks of Printing: from Origins to the Digital Age, Printing Historical Society 50th Anniversary Conference
08-Nov-2014	Kunsthistorisches Institut, Philipps-Universität (Marburg, Germany): 'Moondials & Maps, Medicine & Mathematics: Printing Colour in Early Scientific Publications', Naturwissenschaft & Illustration im 15.-16. Jh.
09-Oct-2014	John Rylands Library, University of Manchester: 'The Materiality of the Press: Use and Reuse in Early Modern Printshops', Print and Materiality in the Early Modern World
01-Oct-2014	John Rylands Research Institute Research Showcase monthly seminar, 2014/15
07-Jul-2014	Herzog August Bibliothek (Wolfenbüttel, Germany): 'Mapping the Dissemination of Early Colour Printmaking Technologies, 1476-c.1600'
27-Jun-2014	Herzog August Bibliothek (Wolfenbüttel, Germany): 'Printing the 1505 Missale Constantiense: New Artefacts from Erhard Ratdolt's Press'
14-Jun-2014	St John's College, Cambridge: 'Colouring the Reformation Book', Reform and Reformation: The Seventh Research Colloquium
02-Jun-2014	British Library (London): 'Reconstructing Early Modern Workshop Practice for Colour Printing, c.1490-1630', Seminar on Textual Bibliography for Modern Foreign Languages
12-Feb-2014	College Art Association (Chicago): 'Early Modern "Decals": Printing Intarsia in the German-Speaking Lands, c.1550-c.1650', Objectifying Prints: Hybrid Media 1450-1800
10-Feb-2014	University of Chicago: 'Hiding in Plain Sight: Rediscovering Printed Colour in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1600'
26-Jan-2014	Bibliographical Society of America (Grolier Club, New York): 'The Earliest Artifacts of Color Printmaking in the West: Red Frisket Sheets, c.1490-1630', annual conference
16-Jan-2014	Warburg Institute, University of London: 'Colour Printing in the Renaissance: The Strasbourg Edition of Ptolemy's Geography (1513)', Map and Society Lectures
27-Nov-2013	Universidade do Porto: Ad Stijnman/Elizabeth Upper, 'The Colourful Printed Past: Early Colour Printmaking, 1450-1700', Pure Print: Classical Printmaking in Contemporary Art
18-Oct-2013	American Printing History Association (Grolier Club, New York): 'Rediscovering Colour in German Graphic Art, 1487-ca. 1600', Seeing Color/Printing Color (annual conference)
16-Oct-2013	Darwin College, Cambridge: 'Early Modern Colour Woodcuts (They Existed!) and Their International Context (There were Lots of Them!)', Humanities Talks
01-Oct-2013	Centre for Research in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Cambridge University: 'ArtStor: A Case Study', Managing Digital Images: An Introduction for Researchers
27-Sep-2013	Early Modern Studies Institute, University of Southern California/Huntington Library: 'Saving Waste: Early Modern Colour Frisket Sheets as Palimpsests of Functions', Ephemerality and Durability in Early Modern Visual and Material Culture
15-Aug-2013	Folger Shakespeare Library (Washington, DC): 'Palimpsests of Functions: Manuscripts as Frisket Sheets for Colour Printmaking as Binding Scraps', New Bownde: New Scholarship in Early Modern Binding
18-May-2013	Kanazawa College of Art (Kanazawa, Japan): Ad Stijnman/Elizabeth Upper, 'Early European Colour Prints, 1450-1800, with a Note on Colour-printed Early Japanese Etchings'
01-May-2013	Cambridge Bibliographical Society, Cambridge University: 'Beheaded Cows, English Religious Politics and the Title Vignette of Rede me and be nott wrothe (1528)'
22-Mar-2013	Early Modern Research Centre, University of Reading: 'A Survey of Early Modern Colour Printmaking in Europe', Printed Image and Decorative Print, 1500-1750
21-Mar-2013	British Museum (London): 'Printing with Gold before the Reformation', Colour in Prints and Drawings, Graphic Arts Group
12-Mar-2013	University of Wales (Trinity Saint David, Bangor University and Aberystwyth University, via Welsh Video Network): 'The Invisibility of Colour in European Printmaking, 1500-1600', Research Seminar, Institute for Medieval and Early Modern Studies
21-Feb-2013	Centre for Material Texts, Cambridge University: Ad Stijnman/Elizabeth Upper, 'Cycles of Invention: Historical Developments of "New" Innovations in Colour Printing, c.1600-1700'
18-Dec-2012	Bibliographical Society, Society of Antiquaries (London): 'Colour Printmaking in Tudor Books'
15-Oct-2012	British Museum (London): 'Erasmus Loy's Printed "Intarsia"', Graphic Arts Group
28-Jun-2012	Technische Universität Berlin: Ad Stijnman/Elizabeth Upper, 'Early Modern Colour Printing, 1600-1700', Colour in the 17th and 18th Centuries: Connexions between Science, Arts, and Technology
10-Feb-2012	King's College, Cambridge: 'God's Red Fingernails & Half a Wild Child: Accident and Innovation in Colour-Printed Book Illustrations from Early Modern Germany, ca. 1500-1550', King's College Seminar
08-Dec-2011	CRASSH, Cambridge University: 'Blood in Books and Woodgrain on Walls: Previously Unknown Functions of Colour Woodcuts in Sixteenth-Century Germany', Impressions of Colour: Rediscovering Colour in Early Modern Printmaking, ca 1400-1700
08-Dec-2011	Impressions of Colour: Rediscovering Colour in Early Modern Printmaking, ca 1400-1700 The absence of colour has been long been considered a defining characteristic of early modern printmaking. Colour printing from the hundreds of years between the invention of the printing press and 1700, when Jacques Christophe Le Blon developed the three-colour method we use today, has been thought of as rare and extraordinary. However, new research has revealed that bright inks added commercial value, didactic meaning and visual emphasis to subjects as diverse as anatomy, art, astronomy, biology, cartography, medicine, militaria and polemics in both single-sheet prints and books. Despite the significance and scale of these discoveries, the bias against colour continues to dominate print scholarship; the colour in colour prints is often ignored. As the technology to disseminate images in their original colour has spread, much important material has suddenly become available to scholars. Now that techniques that were thought to have been isolated technical experiments seem to have been relatively common practice, a new, unified history of, and conceptual framework for, early modern colour printing has become necessary, and significant aspects of early modern print culture now must be reconsidered. This conference aims to explore new methodologies and foster new ways of understanding the development of colour printing in Europe through an interdisciplinary consideration of the production. The conference will feature a demonstration of early colour printing techniques in the Historical Printing Room, a display of books with early colour printing at the University Library and a display of early colour prints at the Fitzwilliam Museum.
02-Nov-2011	Justus-Liebig-Universität (Gießen, Germany): Alice Klein/Elizabeth Upper, 'Die Drucker Schott und Grüninger: Straßburg, ein Zentrum der Farbdruckerei um 1510-1530', Druckvorgänge: Drucktechniken vor 1600
17-Oct-2011	Warburg Institute, University of London: 'The (Re)Inventions of Colour Printing: The Significance of Johann Grüninger's Failed Experiments of 1517-1518', Art History Seminar
01-Jul-2011	Research Centre for Book, Text and Place, Bath Spa University: 'Printing Colour in Early Modern German Book Illustrations: The Significance of Johann Grüninger's Failed Experiments of 1517-1518', Book Encounters 1500-1750
01-May-2011	History of Art, Cambridge University: 'Printing Colour in the Age of Dürer: German 'Chiaroscuro' Woodcuts, 1487-ca. 1572',
24-Mar-2011	Renaissance Society of America (Montreal): Elisabeth Giselbrecht/Elizabeth Upper, 'Golden Woodcuts and Movable Notes: Printing Technology and Patronage in Early Modern Germany', Decorated Music: Visual Art in a Musical Context
24-Nov-2010	Fitzwilliam Museum (Cambridge): 'The Prestige of Printing in Gold and…Gray? New Research on Hans Burgkmair's Maximilian I (1510)', New Research Lecture Series
30-Apr-2010	King's College, Cambridge: 'Printing Gold in the "Golden Age" of German Prints', Lunchtime Seminar
03-Feb-2010	Interdisciplinary Early Modern Seminar, Cambridge University: 'Mit Fleiss getruckt': The Glittering Coat of Arms of Cardinal Matthäus Lang von Wellenburg in Ludwig Senfl's Liber selectarum cantionum (1520)
01-Oct-2009	New Research Lecture Series (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge)  monthly seminar, 2014/15
	Fabric-Covered Woodblocks Printed with “Oil Paints” in Late Medieval England?  Blocks Plates Stones: Matrices/Printing Surfaces in Research and Collections, Courtauld Institute of Art
	2019–present, Book and Print Initiative seminars, School of Advanced Study 30 speakers in 2018/19. Co-convened with Raphaële Mouren and Argula Rublack.

Knowledge transfer activities:

Details
Exhibition curator, German Renaissance Colour Prints (British Museum, Nov 2015-Jan 2016)
Exhibition contributor, European Colour Woodcuts, 1500-1600. section of 'Good bookes to be sought': Munby the Collector (Cambridge University Library, June-Sept 2013)
Exhibition curator, Tudor Colour Printing (Cambridge University Library, Dec2013-Jan 2014)
Exhibition curator, maps: MA Photographic Studies, University of Westminster (Ambika P3, London)
Exhibition curator, Voice of the Grain: MA Photographic Studies, University of Westminster (Ambika P3, London)
Exhibition curator, MAPS, MA Photographic Studies, University of Westminster (Ambika P3, London, September 2011)
Exhibition curator, Light Sensitive: MA Photographic Studies, University of Westminster (Ambika P3, London)
Exhibition curator, Dying to Know: MA Photographic Studies, University of Westminster (Ambika P3, London)
Exhibition curator, Skip Intro: MA Photographic Studies, University of Westminster (Ambika P3, London)
Exhibition curator, SPAM: MA Photographic Studies, University of Westminster (Shoreditch Town Hall, London)

Consultancy & Media

Available for consultancy:

Yes

Media experience:

Yes

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