Renowned painter and printmaker Michael Mazur, a star pupil of Gabor Peterdi, began an international career with his first exhibition at Silvermine. A 2001 exhibition of etchings inspired by The Inferno of Dante served as homecoming for the artist, whose monotypes accompanying the Robert Pinsky translation garnered international acclaim.
Mazur had a lifelong fascination with the poem. In the early 1990s, Mazur and longtime friend poet Robert Pinsky (U.S. Poet Laureate 1997-2000) collaborated on the production of a new illustrated translation of The Inferno pairing Mazur’s monotypes with Pinsky’s translations. This initial project was later expanded into a portfolio of 41 etchings.