A selection of twenty 19th- and 20th-century color woodblock prints from the permanent collection of the Michele and Donald D'Amour Museum of Fine Arts will be on view from September 9, 2008, through March 8, 2009.

Color woodblock printing as we know it today was developed by Japanese artists in the 18th century, and adapted by European artists. American artists Arthur Wesley Dow and Charles Hawthorn are credited with teaching American artists this technique after studying in Europe. But unlike Japanese printing, where the artist's design is executed by a group of craftsmen, the American artists created the entire image themselves. A small group of Americans, who studied in Paris with Dow and Hawthorn, formed what became known as the Provincetown School in Provincetown, Mass. Six artists from the group, including Margaret Jordan Patterson and Edna Boies Hopkins, formed the Provincetown Printers, the first color-print society in America. The exhibition also includes work by Irish artist Robert James Enraght-Moony and Australian artist John Hall Thorpe. This is the first time any of these prints have been exhibited at the museum.