The Driehaus Museum announces summer programs in connection with Ink & Outrage: 18th Century Satirical Prints in London & Dublin, an exhibition that explores the wit and graphic brilliance displayed by English graphic satirical artists such as James Gillray (1765-1815) and Thomas Rowlandson (1757-1827) to lampoon civics, society, and culture in Georgian London. The exhibition places original prints in dialogue with plagiarized works by artists in Ireland, evoking conversations about piracy, originality, and reproduction that have become more relevant than ever today. Organized by guest curators Silvia Beltrametti and William Laffan, and following its debut at the Irish Architectural Archive in Dublin in 2025, Ink & Outrage: 18th Century Satirical Prints in London & Dublin takes place at the Driehaus Museum, 50 E. Erie Street, from May 15 to September 13, 2026.
Now ubiquitous in Internet meme culture and modern-day satire, the groundbreaking use of image and text during the Georgian period was a powerful form of storytelling, holding those.in power accountable, and tackling the great themes of the age, equality, revolution and war.
Ink & Outrage: 18th Century Satirical Prints in London & Dublin includes approximately 100 original prints and features loans from The William A. Gordon Library of British Caricature, the collection of the O’Brien family, and the Richard H. Driehaus Art Exhibition Lending Foundation.
The exhibition places original prints alongside plagiarized works made in Ireland, where copyright law of images did not apply and business for replicas flourished. These pirated copies provoked historic debates around authorship and plagiarism that set the stage for current conversations around artificial intelligence, intellectual property, and mass reproduction today.
In the context of the Driehaus Museum, the exhibition presents Georgian satirical prints as a vital precursor to the art, architecture, and ideas that shaped the United States during the Gilded Age. The works reflect the visual and political culture of an influential period in Britain and Ireland that went on to inform American taste and civic life.
Driehaus Museum Executive Director Lisa M. Key says, “We hope visitors see the trajectory from these early forms of satire to the present day, and the importance of satire as a public forum for debate and connection” while co-curator Silvia Beltrametti adds, “Caricature is the intellectual vehicle that speaks truth to power in the fastest, funniest, and most piercing way possible. Behind the blasts of color in these prints lie a remarkable copyright story-- free from the legal constraints, Irish publishers could copy original productions from London.”
Major support for Ink & Outrage: 18th Century Satirical Prints in London & Dublin is provided by the Driehaus Trust Company, LLC., Karen Z. Gray-Krehbiel and John H. Krehbiel Jr., and the Irish Georgian Society.
Generous support is provided by Joyce and Bill Gordon, Ellen O'Connor, and Friends of Ink & Outrage.
RELATED EXHIBITION
This summer, the Driehaus Museum and the Newberry Library are partnering to bring visibility and attention to two interconnected exhibitions. The Driehaus Museum’s exhibition chronology ends just as the Newberry’s exhibition, Conceived in Liberty: Cartoons, Caricatures, and Illustrations in the Wartime US, 1812-1918, begins, presenting nearly 200 years of history exploring freedom of the press, artistic creativity, and wit. The concurrent exhibitions create synergy between the two Gilded Age-borne Chicago institutions, offering visitors a powerful, uninterrupted and cohesive story in galleries within walking distance of each other.
“Ink & Outrage: 18th Century Satirical Prints in London & Dublin is a model for meaningful local and international collaboration, strengthening the Museum’s commitments to rigorous scholarship, shared stewardship, and cross-cultural exchange. Partnering with the Newberry Library to tell this important story of artistry and expression across time and place is a unique and rare opportunity,” said Key.
“We’re thrilled to feature Conceived in Liberty and highlight our collection strengths in early American history, Indigenous Studies, the Civil War, African American history, and American literature,” said Newberry Library Vice President for Public Engagement Jill Austin. “We are commemorating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence all year long, and this new exhibition shows the complex views of the United States in wartime throughout much of its history. The synergy between the Newberry and Driehaus summer exhibitions that deal with the US and global history of political cartoons and caricature is a delight, and we are excited to partner with our Driehaus Museum colleagues to expand our mutual offerings among our audiences.”
Conceived in Liberty: Cartoons, Caricatures, and Illustrations in the Wartime US, 1812-1918
June 11-September 19, 2026
Newberry Library, 60 West Walton Street
Featuring dozens of objects from the Newberry’s vast collections, Conceived in Liberty: Cartoons, Caricatures, and Illustrations in the Wartime US, 1812-1918 explores how visual artists living through wartime in the US cheered, critiqued, and satirized the country’s commitment to liberty in magazine illustrations, caricatures, editorial cartoons, sheet music covers, broadsides, and posters. Whether patriotic or dissenting, produced for the masses or only a few, these images reveal the diverse, inspiring, and contradictory ways that liberty has been conceived and realized by the people of the US. Who could claim the Declaration’s “unalienable rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”? For whom were the Constitution’s “Blessings of Liberty” to be secured? What, if anything, justifies limitations on human liberty, and what does a dedication to liberty demand of us? Learn more about the exhibition HERE.
RELATED DRIEHAUS MUSEUM PROGRAMS
Third Wednesday - Sounding Caricature: Music in Motion from Ireland to Chicago
Wednesday, July 15, 2026, 6:00-7:00 pm
Inspired by Ink & Outrage: 18th Century Satirical Prints in London & Dublin, this program features the interplay of the Irish harp and the accordion, two instruments shaped by sharply different cultural associations: one elevated as the emblem of the Irish nation, and the other often cast as excessive, comic, or even unruly. Answering the exaggerated forms of Irish caricature in sound, master musicians Marta Cook and Jimmy Keane animate and transform the tensions that the exhibition's prints seek to manage.
Jester’s Privilege: The Role of Satire with The Onion and The New Yorker
Thursday, August 6, 2026, 6:00-7:30pm
Step into the sharp, subversive world of satire, past and present, in this lively panel inspired by the Driehaus Museum’s exhibition Ink & Outrage: 18th-Century Satirical Prints in London & Dublin. Using the exhibition as a springboard, writers and contributors from The Onion (Head Writer Mike Gillis, Staff Writer Rob Knoll) and The New Yorker (Caricaturist Tom Bachtell) will bring the conversation into the present day, exploring how satire is crafted, circulated, and received in today’s fast-moving media landscape. This discussion focuses on the enduring mechanics of satire, its targets, its techniques, and its cultural impact. Panelists will reflect on how their own practices echo (or diverge from) historical traditions, revealing how, in many ways, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Moderated by Colin Barr of the University of Notre Dame, whose scholarship bridges Irish and English history, the conversation offers audiences a unique opportunity to connect the incisive humor of the 18th century with the satirical voices shaping public discourse today.
Mad Fashions, Stylish Eccentrics & Those Who Satirized Them
Thursday, August 27, 2026, 6:30-8:00pm
For some 300 years, cartoonists have cast their satirical lens on fashion, capturing trends at their most absurd. In this visually immersive lecture, Alex Aubry, Director of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Fashion Resource Center, explores the role of satire as a visual record of social mores, tastes, and opinions on fashionable dress. While using humor to ridicule vanity, excess, and eccentricity, the most talented satirists were also keen observers of society. For those who followed them, satirical cartoons also ignited larger conversation around gender roles, class, and morality in a rapidly changing world.
PLUS, offsite: Ink & Outrage - How Were They Made?
July 26, 2026, 1-3pm
At Chicago Printmakers Collaborative, 4912 N Western Avenue, Chicago.
Inspired by the works on view in our Ink & Outrage exhibition, this program explores the enduring artistry of intaglio printmaking. The satirical prints featured in the exhibition were originally hand-drawn onto copper plates by artists in London and Dublin, then etched, inked, and printed using specialized presses designed to transfer every intricate line onto paper. Remarkably, these same techniques are still in use today.
In this exclusive collaboration, Chicago Printmakers Collaborative Founder and Director Deborah Maris Lader will lead an in-depth demonstration, offering a rare opportunity to witness etching and engraving processes firsthand. Through live explanation and hands-on insight, participants will gain a deeper appreciation for the technical precision and creative expression that define this centuries-old practice. Ideal for print enthusiasts, collectors, historians, and the simply curious, this program invites you to discover how artists, then and now, continue to be captivated by the transformative power of ink.
ABOUT THE CURATORS
Silvia Beltrametti is a lecturer in the Department of Art History, Theory and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Beltrametti is an expert on art law and her research focuses on the international trade of art as well as intellectual property, specifically on how copyright shapes artistic production. She has published in the Columbia Journal of Law and the Arts and Northwestern Journal of Technology & Intellectual Property. In 2025 she contributed to Myth and Marble, Ancient Roman Sculpture from the Torlonia Collection (ed. Lisa Ayla Çakmak and Katharine A. Ruff, Yale University Press). With William Laffan, she has published two substantial articles on Dublin caricatures in Irish Architectural and Decorative Studies.
William Laffan is a cultural historian and the author of numerous books on Irish art and architecture. He served as editor of Irish Architectural and Decorative Studies and has published extensively across a wide variety of cultural topics. In 2014 he co-authored Russborough: A Great Irish House, Its Families and Collections and the following year was historical adviser to the landmark exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, Ireland, Crossroads of Art and Design, 1690- 1840 and edited the show’s catalogue. In 2024 he curated Thomas Frye, An Irish Artist in London at Dublin Castle. With Silvia Beltrametti, he has published two substantial articles on Dublin caricatures in Irish Architectural and Decorative Studies.
ABOUT THE DRIEHAUS MUSEUM
The Driehaus Museum engages and inspires the global community through exploration and ongoing conversations in art, architecture, and design of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Its permanent collection and temporary exhibitions are presented in an immersive experience within the restored 1883 Nickerson Mansion, and the 1926 Murphy Auditorium. The Museum’s collection reflects and is inspired by the collecting interests, vision, and focus of its founder, the late Richard H. Driehaus. For more information, visit driehausmuseum.org and connect with the Museum on Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.
Image credits L-R: Sketches of the Kennel, A PORTRAIT of that EXCELLENT OLD DOG WATERLOO, William Heath (Paul Pry). The Union Club, James Gillray, 1801, Published by Hannah Humphrey, January 21, 1801. Matrimonial Harmonics, James Gillray, Published by Hannah Humphrey, circa 1805, Loaned by the O’Brien Foundation.