As part of the University of Wolverhampton's Artsfest Online programme this event launches the new History of the Printed Image Network (HoPIN), which aims to connect those interested in the history of printed images, including (but not limited to) artistic prints, book illustration, chapbooks, ballad-sheets, maps, photographs, transfer-prints, etc.

The webinar will be introduced by John Hinks co-ordinator of HoPIN, Honorary Research Fellow in Printing History and Culture at Birmingham City University.

There is no charge for membership or for online events. The network – which is part of the Centre for Printing History and Culture (a joint venture of Birmingham City University and the University of Birmingham) – is open to anyone interested in printed images: academics, curators, printmakers and other practitioners, in fact anyone with an interest in the field. The only limitation is that HoPIN focuses on the history of the printed image rather than current practice, except of course where practice is informed by historical awareness. To join HoPIN, email the network co-ordinator: john.hinks@bcu.ac.uk

Speakers include:

Rose Roberto: In search of Walter Crane’s earliest published illustrations.

Rose is a librarian and scholar of 19th- and early 20th-century visual culture, Bishop Grosseteste University, Lincoln.

Sibylle Erle: Images in Illuminated Printing: William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience.

Sibylle is a reader in English Literature, Bishop Grosseteste University, Lincoln.

Amy Webster: ‘I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then’: exploring the repackaging of classic children’s books in modern series.

Amy is Senior Lecturer in Education Studies, Bishop Grosseteste University, Lincoln.

John Grayson: The transferred image: from eighteenth-century enamel to contemporary craft.

John is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Birmingham City University, and freelance contemporary crafts maker.

Brian Maidment: New books on old prints.

Brian is Emeritus Professor of the History of Print, Liverpool John Moores University.

Laura Onions: The Dudley writing cards (1928): printing into painting into writing.

Laura is a printmaker and lecturer in fine art at the University of Wolverhampton.