The first engravers were prehistoric carvers in rock. Then came the goldsmiths and armorers of the Middle Ages. Engraving as original expression for printmaking achieved maturity within just two generations following its invention with the works of Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506), Martin Schongauer (1445-1495), Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) and others, though for the next 350 years the technique became primarily stereotyped as a means to reproduce paintings and other types of works. Emancipation came with the arrival and evolution of photomechanical processes, and artists like Stanley William Hayter (1901-1988) and Joseph Hecht (1891-1951) brought renewed creative vigor to the medium.

    The beauty and tension of the engraved line, driven as it is against a resistant copper, connects us physically with our cave-carving ancestors, and invites us to take up where the Renaissance left off.