Rembrandt etching exhibition to open in city

An exhibition of etchings by the 17th Century artist Rembrandt will go on show at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery later this year.

It will be the first time his etchings have been brought out of the Netherlands as a collection, Birmingham Museums said.

The artist produced more than 300 of them and the exhibition would present the complete range of his etchings, a spokesperson added.

Rembrandt: Masterpieces in Black and White - Prints from the Rembrandt House Museum will open on 6 March.

The exhibition, on until 1 June, provided the only opportunity for people to see it in the UK, Birmingham Museums said.

It added while "many artists of that era saw printmaking as a reproductive medium", as a way to share images of famous paintings or sculptures, Rembrandt embraced etching's "unique characteristics to create finished artworks".

Rembrandt "valued the quick lines that one could create with etching" and he "exploited this to create masterful composition".

His printmaking style changed over his career and he honed his style across a wide variety of subjects, Birmingham Museums said.

His progress will be traced in a number of themed sections in the exhibition, which will look at how he used self-portraits "to fashion his own visual identity and explore the complexity of aging".

The exhibition is being co-organised by the American Federation of Arts and the Rembrandt House Museum.

It will also include select works by his forerunners and contemporaries.

Rembrandt House Museum's head of collections, Epco Runia, said: "With this exhibition we hope to demonstrate that each of Rembrandt's prints is a work of art in its own right.

"If you take the time to look at them closely, a whole world opens up to you - a world in black and white but with enormous visual richness."

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