“The South Room,” Tom Root.

To Market, to Market:

NEW YORK CITY

Following the exhibition “From the Artist’s Studio: Unknown Prints and Drawings by Mary Cassatt,” Marc Rosen Fine Art, Ltd has assembled another exhibition of 122 works from this key period in the history of printmaking. An illustrated catalog will be published in conjunction with this show.

Particularly rich in works by Bonnard and Vuillard, the exhibition also contains a large part of the graphic output of Renoir. The Impressionist and the Nabi aspect is rounded out with a selection of fine color prints by Cross, Cezanne, Denis, Signac, Sisley, and Toulouse-Lautrec.

Also included is a large collection of the extraordinary Symbolist lithographs of Odilon Redon, many in rarely seen complete sets. Finally, there is a rare color lithograph by James McNeill Whistler, who, though American, executed his few works in this medium in France.

French printmaking at the end of the Nineteenth Century went through a major change both in imagery and in the preferred means of expression. The younger artists of this era sought a way of translating their impressionistic views of country and city life into a print medium compatible with their light-filled vision, and the great art dealer and connoisseur Ambroise Vollard was there to add the needed boost.

Patronage has often been a critical influence in the history of art, and it is clear that without the prodding and marketing enthusiasm of Vollard, there would hardly have been a significant legacy of prints from the hands of Bonnard, Cezanne, Denis, Renoir and Vuillard.

Beyond his own publishing projects, Vollard’s activities helped to create a climate in which artists were stimulated to explore printmaking, particularly the newly popular medium of color lithography. Vollard was able to provide his artists with the technical assistance of a master lithographer Auguste Clot. He even succeeded in tempting the Symbolist artist Odilon Redon — for whom lithography had seemed synonymous with black — to contribute a color lithograph, “Beatrice,” to his second Album d’Estampes originales de la Galerie Vollard.

The show will offer many prints that have Vollard provenance. They had been tucked away in storage over the last century, according to Adelson Galleries.

Gallery hours are Monday to Friday, 9:30 am to 5:30 pm; Saturday, 10 am to 5 pm. For information contact: Marc Rosen Fine Art, Ltd; 212-535-5283 or Adelson Galleries, Inc at 212-439-6800.