This symposium will explore artistic production, practices, and the agency of printed media before 1750 as they intersect with themes of sexuality and gender.
Krannert Art Museum acknowledges support from the Illinois Arts Council.
Conceptions of sexuality and gender underwent profound changes in Europe during the premodern era (roughly 1300–1750) and were an important avenue of exploration for printmakers. In art prints, broadsheets, fashion plates, and anatomies alike, human subjects were fashioned and viewed in conversation with cultural attitudes and beliefs about gender and sexuality. Canonical works such as Albrecht Dürer’s Adam and Eve and Henrick Goltzius’s Farnese Hercules as Seen from Behind not only convey notions of artistic excellence but also their ideas about idealized bodies, gender roles, and sexuality. Additionally, gender and sexuality had profound effects on artistic practices and training. In a time when many women were precluded from traditional apprenticeships and professional guilds, printmaking could present alternative paths to collaboration and network building. Moreover, as an artform linked with the broad circulation of knowledge but also with intimate, private viewing, prints open doors to consider how artists and beholders conceived of their own experiences of gender and sexuality in and outside of social norms.
This symposium focused on sexuality and gender, is being held in conjunction with Imagination, Faith, and Desire: Art and Agency in European Prints, 1475–1800, curated by Maureen Warren, and on view at Krannert Art Museum from Sep 25, 2025–Feb 26, 2026.
The event will be hybrid, blending in-person presentations with online presentations via Zoom to make the event more equitable and permit international participation and will also include a walk-through of the exhibition. The talks will be projected for viewing together at the museum, from 10 am–4 pm, with a tour of the exhibition* to follow.
The keynote speaker will be Dr. Nicole Cook, Senior Program Manager at the Center for Netherlandish Art at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Dr. Cook will share her research about seventeenth-century Dutch prints of “nightwalkers” and how they envisage a space for gender nonconformity.
Speakers include:
• Saskia Beranek, Ph.D., Wonsook Kim College of Fine Arts, Illinois State University
• Sunmin Cha, Ph.D. Candidate, Columbia University, New York
• Kendra Grimmett, Ph.D., Ball State University
• Darja (Daria) Kocerova, Ph.D. Candidate, The Warburg Institution, London
• Tatiana C. String, Ph.D., The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Jolene Zigarovich, Ph.D., University of Northern Iowa
Co-organized by Sandra Racek and Maureen Warren.
*Just added! Join us for a Curator Talk & Tour on Saturday, November 22, at 10:30 am.
Image, detail: Albrecht Dürer, Adam and Eve (2nd state), 1504. Engraving. Private collection.
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
Envisioning Gender and Sexuality in Premodern European Prints
Friday, October 17, 2025
10:00 am – 5:00 pm CDT (USA)
Note about Time Zones: Timings are given for the U.S.A. Central Daylight Time (CDT).
The start time for speaker presentations in different time zones are as follows:
USA Pacific Daylight Time (UTC -7) 8:30 am
USA Eastern Daylight Time (UTC -4) 11:30 am
UK (UTC +1) 4:30 pm
Europe (UTC +2) 5:30 pm
Coffee and Meet & Greet – 10:00 am
School of Art & Design, Room 316
Morning Presentations – 10:30 am – 12 pm
School of Art & Design, Room 312, or view the livestream at Krannert Art Museum, Auditorium (KAM 62), or via Zoom
• Jolene Zigarovich, Ph.D., University of Northern Iowa
“ ‘To be seen a most surprising Hermaphrodite’: The Visual Circulation of Intersex Lives and Bodies” (Virtual)
• Darja (Daria) Kocerova, Ph.D. Candidate, The Warburg Institution, London
“Once again about The Images of “Henetaster” and Adultery in Early Modern Europe” (Virtual)
• Sunmin Cha, Ph.D. Candidate, Columbia University, New York
“Subverting Eden: Hans Baldung Grien’s Queer Reimagining of Adam and Eve” (Virtual)
Lunch Break – 12:00–1:00 pm
Afternoon Presentations – 1:00–2:30 pm
School of Art & Design, Room 312, or view the livestream at Krannert Art Museum, Auditorium (KAM 62), or via Zoom
• Saskia Beranek, Ph.D., Wonsook Kim College of Fine Arts, Illinois State University
“Bearing Fruit: Female Portraits and Collective Identity in Dutch Maps” (In-person)
• Kendra Grimmett, Ph.D., Ball State University
“His Little Death: Danger, Intimacy, and Power in Barthel Beham’s Judith Seated on the Body of Holofernes” (In-person)
• Tatiana C. String, Ph.D., The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
“The Fine Line between Pleasure and Pain: Homoerotic Performance in Bartel Beham’s Battle for the Banner” (In-person)
Keynote Address – 2:30–3:30 pm
School of Art & Design, Room 312, or view the livestream at Krannert Art Museum, Auditorium (KAM 62), or via Zoom
• Nicole Cook, Ph.D., Museum of Fine Art, Boston
“Nightwalking and Nightwatching: Navigating Gender at Night in Early Modern Dutch Works on Paper” (In-person)
Exhibition Tour with the Curator – 3:45-4:45 pm
Krannert Art Museum, Main Level, East Gallery
• Maureen Warren, Ph.D., Krannert Art Museum
“Imagination, Faith, and Desire: Art and Agency in European Prints, 1475–1800”
