NEW YORK, NY.- This fall, The Museum of Biblical Art presents an exhibition of prints from the Jansma Print Collection at the Grand Rapids Art Museum, one of the most significant collections of prints inspired by the Old and New Testaments. Spanning five centuries of printmaking, Dürer, Rembrandt, Tiepolo: The Jansma Master Prints Collection from the Grand Rapids Art Museum features the complete Jansma collection, including works by Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt van Rijn, Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, Édouard Manet, and Max Pechstein, as well as a series of 21 engravings by William Blake, to underscore the Bible’s enduring influence on Western artists. On view from October 17, 2014 through January 11, 2015, MOBIA’s installation also features Dürer’s woodcut print and accompanying block for The Martyrdom of St. Catherine of Alexandria (c. 1498) from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as loans from the Brooklyn Museum, to showcase the process and complexity of printmaking. A selection of rare Bibles from the American Bible Society’s collection have been paired with each print series to further illustrate the breadth and range of the Jansma collection—from a 15th-century German Bible displayed alongside the Dürer works to a 19th-century English Bible accompanying the William Blake series.

“We are delighted to give the Jansma Print Collection, which comprises some of the most important prints ever made, its New York debut at the Museum of Biblical Art,” said MOBIA’s director Richard P. Townsend. “These superb impressions succinctly and cohesively tell the story of the development of the Western printmaking tradition—from the Renaissance to the 20th century—through works by its greatest practitioners. We are pleased to collaborate with the Grand Rapids Art Museum in sharing and investigating the Bible’s timeless narratives through great works of art that continue to resonate for us today.”

Established in 2005, The Jansma Print Collection comprises 57 etchings, engravings, and woodcuts, including the recently acquired Illustrations of the Book of Job (1825) by William Blake. The exhibition reflects the Jansma family’s desire to bring together works representing the diverse styles and techniques, as well as outstanding level of ingenuity and skill exemplified in prints from the 16th to the 20th centuries. Highlights from the collection, the entirety of which are on view at MOBIA, include:

• Albrecht Dürer – The Engraved Passion (1507-1513), a series of 16 engravings depicting scenes from the life of Christ, including Christ as the Man of Sorrows, Crucifixion, Deposition, and Resurrection. These remarkably detailed renderings—only 4½ x 3 inches in size—epitomize the artist’s ability to capture immense dynamism and human emotion on a small scale. Created shortly after Dürer returned from his second trip to Italy, this series reflects the significant impact of Italian forms on his work, which is widely considered a synthesis of Northern and Italian Renaissance styles.

• Rembrandt van Rijn – The Three Crosses (1653-1655), regarded as one of the artist’s greatest masterpieces as a printmaker. Created entirely in drypoint, a technique that allows for more immediate control of the drawing, the image depicts the moment of Christ’s death and the trauma experienced by those who surround him at the cross.

• Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo – The Flight into Egypt (1750-1753), a series of 24 works created during a formative period of the artist’s career. Although primarily a painter, Tiepolo completed over 175 etchings during his career, and this series exemplifies the artist’s use of dynamic line to convey light and forms. In collaboration with his father, Giovanni Battista, Tiepolo was also contributing to the frescoes for the palace of prince-bishop Carl Philipp von Greiffenklau of Würzburg, to whom the series is dedicated, at the time these etchings were created.

• William Blake – Illustrations of the Book of Job (1825), a series of 21 engravings widely considered to be the artist’s masterpiece as an intaglio printmaker. The culmination of Blake’s ongoing work with the subject of Job, these illustrations follow the basic biblical narrative with the insertion of Blake’s personal interpretation of the text through symbols and motifs common in his work. Blake used pure line engraving rather than the more common combined technique of etching and engraving, which links the prints to the engravings of the Old Masters, such as Albrecht Dürer, whom Blake greatly admired.

• Édouard Manet – Dead Christ with Angels (1866-1867), an etching directly related to the artist’s painting of the same title shown in the Paris Salon exhibition of 1864. Rather than serving as a direct reproduction of the painting, the print was conceived as a new interpretation of the religious subject. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Manet seldom created prints and less than a dozen impressions of Dead Christ with Angels exist, making this work exceptionally rare.

• Max Pechstein – The Lord’s Prayer (1921), a series of 12 hand-colored woodcuts illustrating the promise of forgiveness and deliverance from evil, themes that resonated deeply in postwar Germany. Pechstein includes a single verse of the Lord’s Prayer on each sheet, emphasizing the power of personal prayer and the artist’s newly disillusioned state of mind. Although Pechstein had been an advocate of revolutionary change, by the time these woodcuts were created he had turned towards the idea of heavenly intervention.

Each print series is being displayed with a contemporaneous Bible from the American Bible Society’s Rare Bible Collection that further illustrates the subject matter of each print series, and give additional insights on the time period and region from which the prints derive. Examples of the Bibles on view include: a 15th-century Bible in German, turned to the story of Christ’s resurrection in the Gospel of Mark, alongside Dürer’s The Engraved Passion; an 18th-century Bible in Latin, turned to the story of Christ’s flight from Egypt from the Gospel of Matthew, accompanying Tiepolo’s The Flight into Egypt; and a 19th- century Bible in English, turned to the beginning of the story of Job, accompanying Blake’s Illustrations of the Book of Job. The American Bible Society Rare Bible Collection is on loan to the Museum of Biblical Art, New York.