Silverpoint and Metalpoint Drawing ― A Complete Guide to the Medium

Silverpoint, and metalpoint more generally, is the practice of marking with soft metal on a specifically prepared drawing surface. Practiced for centuries, the artform is experiencing a resurgence in recent years, with contemporary work exploring abstract as well as realist, conceptual as well as traditional.

Silverpoint and Metalpoint Drawing is the essential manual of metalpoint technique, written by Susan Schwalb and Tom Mazzullo, contemporary masters of the medium. This book is the first treatise on the subject for artists and art teachers with chapters on early history, materials including grounds, supports, metals, and tools, techniques for working in metalpoint as well as mixed media, and finally, the care of metalpoint works. Not only beautifully illustrated, this book also demonstrates how to photograph and exhibit metalpoint art. Featuring a gallery of drawings by contemporary artists, along with their tips and insight, Silverpoint and Metalpoint Drawing is a perfect introduction for students of the medium and an inspiration for those already more familiar with it.

Susan Schwalb is one of the foremost figures in the current silverpoint revival. She was born in New York City in 1944 and studied at Carnegie-Mellon University. She has had over 50 solo exhibitions in galleries and museums world-wide, and her work is represented in most major public collections, including The Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin, the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, the Yale University Art Gallery, and the British Museum, London. Schwalb was one of only three living artists included in the historical metalpoint exhibition Drawing with Silver and Gold: From Leonardo to Jasper Johns at the National Gallery of Art, Washington. She lives in New York City.

Tom Mazzullo was born in Williamsport, Pennsylvania in 1968, and attended Tyler School of Art, where he was awarded a BFA in Printmaking in 1990. He earned an MFA from Syracuse University in 1993 and has taught drawing at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, the University of Denver and the Art Students League of Denver, and he has lectured and demonstrated silverpoint all over the country. He has exhibited his silverpoint drawings in museums and galleries nationwide, has work in several notable collections, and is a member of Spark Gallery, Denver. He lives in Westminster, Colorado.