The Melton Prior Institute is located in Düsseldorf, Germany, and provides the basis for an internationally oriented research on the histories of press graphics, illustration, reportage drawing, and related techniques of printing. It presently consists of a collection of original drawings, prints and portfolios by relevant artists, as well as of a library stressing the documentation of graphic reporting in the early stages of pictorial press publishing from the 19th century. The institute publishes new contributions on its website in irregular intervals. Those interested in receiving our monthly newsletter are kindly invited to subscribe to our mailing list by sending a message to info@meltonpriorinstitut.org. All hints, even remotely related to the subject of graphic reportage, are most welcome.

Das Melton Prior Institut hat seinen Sitz in Düsseldorf und schafft seit 2015 die Grundlagen für eine international orientierte Erforschung der Geschichten von Pressegrafik, Illustration, Reportagezeichnung und zugehörigen Drucktechniken. Es verfügt derzeit über Sammlungsbestände aus Originalzeichnungen, druckgrafischen Werken und Sammlungen relevanter Künstler und Künstlerinnen und eine Fachbibliothek mit Schwerpunkt auf der Dokumentation grafischer Reportage zur Frühzeit der illustrierten Presse. Das Institut veröffentlicht in unregelmäßigen Abständen neue Beiträge auf seiner Website. Anmeldungen für unseren monatlich erscheinenden Newsletter richten Sie bitte an info@meltonpriorinstitut.org. Hinweise jeglicher Art sind, soweit sie das Thema der grafischen Reportage betreffen, ausdrücklich willkommen.

The William James Linton Archive is part of the Melton Prior Institute’s collections and offers access to the history and practice of wood engraving, a printing technique that held central significance for the rise of the illustrated press as a mass medium. This historical development is epitomized by William James Linton, an engraver, publisher and influential historian of xylography, who, together with his workshop, was responsible for the major part of the illustrations in the «London Illustrated News», the first illustrated weekly magazine to deal with political faits divers. In his career, a relationship between the artistic ethos pertaining to relief printing practices and an uncompromising republican–democratic stance often described as «radical» becomes clearly visible. This interrelation can be traced back to the 18th and early 19th century’s rich culture of pamphlet and relief printing, which has found its most splendid expression in the revolutionary prints of artist-poet William Blake and his technique of «illuminated printing.» It is an equally constitutive part of this archive’s activities.

• Prof. Dr. Stephan Berg

  Intendant des Kunstmuseum Bonn

• Prof. Dr. Michael Fehr

  Vorsitzender des Deutschen Werkbundarchivs, Berlin

• Prof. Dr. Michael Glasmeier

  Kurator und Kunsthistoriker (em.), Hochschule für Künste, Bremen

• Dr. Ulrike Groos

  Leiterin des Kunstmuseums Stuttgart

• Ben Katchor

  Cartoonist, Associate Professor an der Parsons School of Design, The New School, New York City

• Kate Macfarlane

  Kuratorin, Drawing Room, London

• Horst Moser

  Independent Medien-Design, München, Zeitschriftenmuseum

• Prof. Dr. Joachim Rees

  Kunsthistoriker, Universität des Saarlandes, Saarbrücken

• Dr. Andreas Schalhorn

  Kurator für moderne Graphik am Berliner Kupferstichkabinett

• Dr. Astrit Schmidt-Burkhardt

  Bildhistorikerin, Freie Universität Berlin

• Prof. Patrick Thomas

  Professor für Kommunikationsdesign an der Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart

• Prof. Pierre Thomé

  Illustrator, Studiengangsleiter Illustration an der Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst, Luzern