Join us in the Archives & Special Collections Gallery to hear directly from the curator about the new exhibit “Novels Without Words”: Storytelling in Relief! Then visit the Text & conText Lab to gain insight into how these books were made by carving and printing your own linocut.

The books on display represent a unique moment in printmaking history. In the early 20th century, artists working in relief etching produced what they called "novels without words," though we might call them an early form of the graphic novel.

Working in mediums like woodcut, leadcut, and linocut, artists produced emotive politically-charged works, from Frans Masereel’s novels, which explore economic exploitation and labor organizing in Europe after WWI, to Southern Cross by Laurence Hyde, which tells a fictionalized account of atomic bomb testing conducted by the US on Polynesian people in the South Pacific. All featured volumes are part of the University of Pittsburgh Library System’s Archives & Special Collections.

Location: We will start in the Archives & Special Collections Exhibit Gallery, then move to the Text & conText Lab. Both spaces are on the third floor of Hillman Library.

Advanced registration is required.