Grolier Club's 1,000th Exhibition Will Focus on History of Papermaking

The Grolier Club will begin its 2026–2027 season with a new exhibition highlighting revolutions in contemporary American hand papermaking. 

The milestone 1,000th exhibition Pioneers in Hand Papermaking: 50 Years of Innovation at Dieu Donné on view September 8 through November 28, also celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Dieu Donné Papermill non-profit studio based in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Featuring more than 110 works from the collections of Susan Gosin, Dieu Donné co-founder and Grolier Club member, and the Dieu Donné Archive & Collection, the exhibition includes custom sheets of paper and two- and three-dimensional works by 80 artists including Diana Al-Hadid, Lynda Benglis, Mark Bradford, Michele Oka Doner, William Kentridge, Glenn Ligon, Howardena Pindell, and Do Ho Suh.

Techniques featured in the exhibition include line and chiaroscuro watermarking, pulp painting, stenciling, and paper casting, with videos that show artists’ reimagination of these processes, alongside papermaking tools and materials. Pioneers in Hand Papermaking is curated by Susan Gosin with Cynthia Nourse Thompson, and an accompanying publication, Dieu Donné: Paper Making Art, from Chronicle Books is available during the exhibition.

Highlights include:

• William Kentridge’s 2009 Sheets of Evidence artist book of 18 watermarked drawings, using laser-cut, adhesive-backed vinyl to make the watermarks
• Do Ho Suh’s Going Home (2013) with colorful embroidered thread drawings that reveal themes of identity, memory, and sense of home
• Howardena Pindell’s Untitled #114 (2023), composed of very small circles of handmade paper with handwritten, etched, and letterpress-printed numbers and symbols inspired by her father’s mathematical notebooks

A related publication, Dieu Donné: Paper Making Art by Susan Gosin (Chronicle Books) is available for preorder. The Grolier Club will also present free public programs related to the exhibition.