In honor of Rembrandt’s 400th birthday this year, the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College joins the ranks of museums worldwide to celebrate the master printmaker through exhibitions and programs. The Hood presents “Rembrandt: Master of Light and Shadow; Etchings from the Collection of the Hood Museum of Art” on view through September 17.

The exhibition features 36 etchings and drypoints by the most inventive and original printmaker of all time. Rembrandt thought about printmaking in new ways, offering the viewer not only carefully finished masterpieces but also more roughly sketched works that reveal his artistic processes.

Throughout his career, Rembrandt continued to devise solutions to the problem of depicting light and shadow with the printed line. The Hood Museum of Art’s collection of Rembrandt etchings spans his life’s work, providing an overview of 30 years of his evolving ideas about printmaking.

Some of the exhibition highlights include “An Elderly Woman (Rembrandt’s mother, Head and Bust),” 1628, an etching and drypoint on laid paper; “Self-Portrait in a Fur Cap: Bust,” 1630, and “The Windmill,” 1641, both etchings on laid paper; and “Christ Crucified Between the Two Thieves: The Three Crosses,” 1653-1660, drypoint on laid paper.

In conjunction with the exhibition, a public symposium will take place on April 22 and a special lecture by world-renowned author and art historian Simon Schama will be given on April 26.

“Celebrating Rembrandt,” a one-day symposium, will take place April 22 from 9 am to 4 pm in the Arthur M. Loew Auditorium. Participants will address a broad range of topics reflecting both the diversity of Rembrandt’s subjects and the richness and complexity of his cultural milieu.

Participants will include Clifford S. Ackley, the Ruth and Carl Shapiro Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Stephanie S. Dickey, associate professor of art history at the Herron School of Art, Indiana University-Purdue University; Susan Donahue Kuretsky, the Sarah Gibson Blanding Professor of Art at Vassar College; Shelley Perlove, professor of art history at the University of Michigan-Dearborn; Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., curator of Northern Baroque painting at the National Gallery of Art; and Michael Zell, associate professor of art history at Boston University.

Celebrating Rembrandt is organized by Professor Joy Kenseth, Dartmouth College, with support from the Hood Museum of Art, the Fannie and Alan Leslie Center for the Humanities, and the Department of Art History.

A related lecture, “Not Going Gentle: Rembrandt And The Roughness Of Age” will be Wednesday, April 26, at 5:30 pm, in the Loew auditorium. Simon Schama, professor of history and art history at Columbia University, will give the lecture.

On July 15, Rembrandt’s official birthday, the Hood will celebrate Rembrandt with a public birthday bash.

The exhibition is organized thematically to focus on his wide-ranging intellectual curiosity, reflected in his passion for portraits, landscapes, biblical stories, and mythological and allegorical scenes. A special niche will feature a copper etching plate and prints at various stages to illustrate the etching process. Complimentary brochures authored by Dr Stacey Sell of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., and Dartmouth Class of 1985, will be available in the galleries.

For more information, www.hoodmuseum.dartmouth.edu or 603-646-2808.