Imprint 2026: Groundbreaking
Welcome to Imprint 2026, our 18th annual high school print competition and exhibition!
This online exhibition represents a juried selection of works submitted by high school students from across Berks, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Lehigh, Montgomery, and Philadelphia Counties.
Imprint, our annual high school printmaking competition and exhibition, is back at the Wharton Esherick Museum for our 18th year! As we mark 100 years since Esherick broke ground on his now iconic Studio, this exhibition reflects everything we celebrate—art as a bridge between generations, techniques rooted in history, and fresh voices shaping the future. The works, submitted by talented high school printmakers, are powerful reminders that this tradition is very much alive and growing.
2026 is a milestone year not only for the Wharton Esherick Museum, but for the country as a whole as we celebrate our 250th anniversary. While we look back to celebrate traditions of making, creativity, and community, we invited students to look forward and explore the theme Groundbreaking. Wharton himself set the standard, breaking ground on bold ideas and new creative directions. Whether reflecting on personal milestones, social movements, or creative breakthroughs, we encouraged young artists to interpret Groundbreaking in ways that speak to their own experience and vision.
First Place
Took 21 Years
Kedar Moore
EZ Cut block print
Springfield Township High School
“This is an image of three black girls looking at the new installation of the black Barbies. This work is considered groundbreaking because it was new to America and incredibly impactful for young girls across the nation. But it is also a bittersweet moment because it still took 21 years for this to happen, sad that some women did not have a doll to play with to look like them until they were full-grown adults. Inspiring the name “Took 21 Years”.“
Second Place & Viewer's Choice
Icthyosaur
Ellana Lizzul
Acrylic drypoint and ink
Pope John Paul II High School
“This etching portrays a young girl peering into a hole in the ground. This is groundbreaking in a few different ways, the first being the fact that ground has been broken in the form of a hole being dug. The other two ways have to do with the context that the young girl is meant to be Mary Anning discovering the fossilized remains of an ichthyosaur at twelve years old. Mary Anning is often regarded as one of the first female paleontologists, being somewhat on par with male contemporaries. Male paleontologists and geologists would often purchase specimens from her and discuss classification and anatomy, all during a time when women could not yet hold public office, vote, or attend college. Her discovery of the ichthyosaur, as well as her older brother’s discovery of its skull, were groundbreaking in the field of paleontology. The fossil would go on to be published in the first scientific article dedicated to an ichthyosaur.”
Third Place
Duncan Lane
Miranda Dziedzic
Linoleum block print
William Penn Charter School
“This print represents the “Groundbreaking” theme to me because of where it is; I was inspired partly from a photo and partly from memory of my grandparent’s house. It is a house that holds a lot of loving memories for generations of my family, and because of this, the way the trees, flowers, and vines seem to envelope the structure of the house in the print is very intentional; it explores how a house can grow into its space and become even more beautiful in its surroundings over time, and how our memories of it act in the same way as the plants do. Thus, it represents “Groundbreaking” because it shows the ways a place can evolve over time and blend the barriers between loving memory and growth in the future.”
Honorable Mentions
A Single Life, a World of a Difference
Erica Case
EZ Cut Block Print
Springfield Township High School
“In this piece, I decided to focus on the little efforts and kind actions that people do to spread awareness. Although donating to one person is not necessarily a “groundbreaking” action for the entire world, it can change someone’s life, change their perspective into having hope of better times, and hope in mankind. These donations and organizations are always growing with an increasing number of people who want to help. I see this as groundbreaking because it is these simple steps that citizens (who do not have incredible amounts of money or power) take to help each other, to stick together, even when we are not all blessed with better situations.”
Repeating Animals
Sylvia Hou
Linoleum Block Print on Paper
Delaware County Christian School
“Sylvia demonstrates her “groundbreaking” concept by how she took a natural, gentle image and figured out to perfectly align her edges in order to print and repeat indefinitely”
Finalists
The Fertile Crescent, Samantha Szewczuk, Pope John Paul II High School 
The Nuts and Bolts of Life, Riley Dart, Villa Maria Academy High School 
Etching Press, Shivika Panghal, Garnet Valley High School Peek A Boo, Ian Schell, Pope John Paul II High School 
This Light is my Prison, Ellec Rhodes, Great Valley High School 
Power to the People, Frankie Marcinkiewicz, Abington Senior High School 
Woman Butterfly and Books, Kavya Mannem, Methacton High School 
Repeating Stars, Juliet Jackson, Delaware County Christian School 
Continuity, Nell Matthews, Springfield Township High School 
Groundbreaking Chinese Inventions, Xin Y. Lang, Julia R Masterman School 
Philly in Bloom, Alliyah Hoke, Central High School 
Perception, Riley Durler, Boyertown Area Senior High 
New Territories, Margaret Dibble, Great Valley High School 
Backyard Transition, Jane Conaway, Springfield Township High School 
Ground Breaking Medicine, Alex Shallcross, Great Valley High School 
Rock, Paper, Scissors, Cole Matthews, Delaware County Christian School 
Breaking the Silence, Gemma Campanella, Pope John Paul II High School 
The Teenage Mind Through the Childs Eyes, Aaliyah Brunson Edsell, Pope John Paul II High School 
Day, Erica Chen, Central High School 
Why Should Gender Determine Your Role?, Caden Bronson, Springfield Township High School 
Where Trumpets Hail, Austin Bielefeldt, Abington Senior High School 
Evidence of Us, Juliet Arkles, Springfield Township High School 
Repeating Flowers, Abigail Kim, Delaware County Christian School 
Neurocatalyst, Annabel Owen, Avon Grove High School 
Layers, Abigail Kotch, Garnet Valley High School 
The Antlers, Abigail Heinrich, Abington Senior High School
Our Guest Juror: Em Dombrovskaya
We are honored to have had Em Dombrovskaya as our guest juror for Imprint 2026. Em Dombrovskaya is the Suzanne Andrée Curatorial Fellow in Prints and Drawings at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. They are a graduate of the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture at the University of Delaware. Em previously worked as an editorial assistant focusing on books in language and literacy education at Routledge. They believe that getting hands-on experience with printmaking improves art historical scholarship, and have taken classes in relief printing, screenprinting, lithography, and etching.
Related Programs
Book Arts in the Workshop: The Art of Tunnel Books
Join us on Saturday, May 2nd for a book arts workshop led by Philadelphia-based artist, illustrator, and long-time Esherick follower Hannah Moog. In celebration of WEM’s 18th annual Imprint exhibition, this workshop explores the art of tunnel books—an accordion-like book structure dating back to the 18th century that expands to create depth and perspective. During this workshop, participants will learn how to plan, pattern, and structure tunnel books, as well as construct their own maquettes!
Related Exhibitions
Imprint 2025
Theme: Renewal
For the Imprint 2025 exhibition we introduced the theme of ‘Renewal.’ For just about as long as there’s been art, renewal has been a cornerstone to the artist’s creative process. As media has changed, new generations and new experiences bring new perspectives and new voices.
