The Ferris Collection of Prints - Introduction The Museum’s
Graphic Arts Collection, the oldest print-collecting unit in the
Smithsonian, focuses on the technical and social history of
printmaking to document how prints are made and used.
Smithsonian art museums collect works on paper selected for
aesthetic reasons, but the National Museum of American History
(formerly the Museum of History and Technology) takes a broad
view of visual culture. Our prints illustrate technical
developments and cultural changes. They represent all kinds of
graphic works that have influenced American society. The
collection has always included examples from many periods and
countries, fine-art prints as well as popular and commercial
graphic art, together with the plates, blocks, and tools used to
produce prints. In 1996 the Museum presented an exhibition on
150 years of Smithsonian print collecting, Building a National
Collection. One of the largest print collections ever received
by the Smithsonian was donated by the Ferris fam