ST. LOUIS, MO.- The Saint Louis Art Museum announces the March 8, 2009 closing of The Nocturne in Printmaking.

This exhibition brings together a selection of prints by European and American artists who explore the evocative possibilities of the nocturne. In night-time scenes, illumination comes from discreet sources such as candlelight or moonlight, and subjects are seen in shadow and silhouette. The Nocturne in Printmaking shows the different intaglio processes that artists adopted in the challenge to render dark tonalities—etching, engraving, mezzotint, aquatint and drypoint.

Included in this collection are prints by Richard Earlom, Hendrick Goudt, Edward Hopper, Max Klinger, Martin Lewis, John Martin, Samuel Palmer and Rembrandt van Rijn. Their works range in poetic mood from the sublime drama of Martin's visionary interpretation of Milton's Paradise Lost to the uncanny quietude in Hopper's depiction of a solitary figure on a New York street corner. The printmakers on display were inspired to illustrate nocturnal episodes from mythology, religious narrative and poetry, as well as ordinary life.

The Nocturne in Printmaking is curated by Eric Lutz, assistant curator of prints, drawings and photographs, and will be on view in Gallery 321 until March 8.