Interest in art prints has taken off recently, with prices for quality examples rising sharply at auction. This is partly because these are seen as a more affordable means of collecting fine art (in some cases the only affordable means) but also because this medium is now appreciated in its own right. The print is no longer regarded as art's second division.

This is especially so in the genre of German Expressionism (1913-1930), in which prints were the dominant format. The genre flourished from 1913 to 1923, a period marked by political and economic turmoil - and a world war.

Artists such as Erich Heckel, Otto Dix, Kathe Kollwitz, George Grosz and Max Beckmann were responding directly to what was happening around them, even if the techniques used were often based on tribal art from Africa and Polynesia.

"The print medium, and the woodcut in particular, with its emphasis on dynamic line and strong contrast, became a major vehicle of expression for these artists," writes Dr Jacqueline Strecker, curator of special exhibitions at the Art Gallery of NSW, in the catalogue for an exhibition now showing at the Rex Irwin Gallery in Sydney.

For collectors of prints the good news is that, with a few exceptions, this is a selling exhibition.

Rex Irwin, himself a collector in this field, has gathered 44 prints from other collectors in London, Berlin, New York and Paris. Sixteen artists are represented - 12 of whom, Irwin notes, were included in the famous Entartete Kunst Exhibit of 1933. This exhibition inspired Adolf Hitler, himself a very mediocre painter of watercolours, to describe the work as degenerate.

The revival of interest in this style is a relatively recent phenomenon and could be a reaction to our own global political and economic troubles. Prices for German Expressionism have escalated in the past three years, especially in the US and Europe. No doubt Rex Irwin is hoping that trend will follow here.

There have been a few resurgences before the current one. Interest in this style disappeared after World War II and the surviving prints were considered near worthless. It's a miracle any survived. There was a revival in the 1960s, then an even stronger one in the early 1980s, along with most other forms of graphic art.

Twenty years ago these prints were valued at $600 to $1000 each. Now the equivalent is $60,000 to $100,000, with an exceptional work worth more than $200,000. The median price is still in the $7000-$15,000 range. Value is determined by quantity as well as quality. In cases where few prints have survived, expect to pay more.

There are also some $500 prints, which are usually those published in magazines of the period. These are not quite the bargains they may appear, because they were printed in quantities so large they may never be considered limited editions.

As with all art prints, the artist's signature and the number out of the total print run add to its value. Most of those at the exhibition were printed in limited editions of 100 or fewer but so few have survived that some are considered virtual one-offs.

This is now an international market so even Irwin is unaware of how many Australian collectors of German prints there are.

He says many of the original collectors were Jewish citizens who were forced to escape the Nazi regime. This explains why so many of the surviving prints have surfaced in America and Britain, with a possibility that a few ended up here.

If so, any local examples of what Hitler described as degenerate art could now be worth a tidy sum.

The exhibition of German Expressionist Prints is currently on show at Rex Irwin Art Dealer, First Floor, 38 Queen Street, Woollahra, Sydney, ending July 12. Images of the prints can be seen at http://www.rexirwin.com.

My collection

Rex Irwin, Sydney art dealer since 1976, has always been aware of the importance of German Expressionism but the Eureka moment for him happened as recently as 2000, at a retrospective at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

There, across a crowded gallery, he spotted Max Beckmann. Or rather, the late artist's self-portrait, a 1922 woodcut. "This image has haunted me over the past few years and still delights me today," he says.

He has since bought several more prints from this period. His fascination with the work of the German Impressionists fits in with his passion for the more contemporary prints of Lucian Freud, Frank Auerbach and Leon Kossoff. The work of Beckmann and his fellow expressionists are their stylistic antecedents, he suggests.

Irwin's personal copy of the Beckmann self-portrait will be included in the exhibition but is not for sale. He says he couldn't bear to part with it.

$6000

Erich Heckel's Bearded Man is typical of what can be bought relatively cheaply. It is signed and dated by the artist.

$19,000

Several women artists figured in the German Expressionist movement. The prints of Kathe Kollwitz are highly regarded. This 1927 self-portrait is a chalk-lithograph.

$40,000

This 1918 woodcut, House On The Shore by Lyonel Feininger, shows the influence of modernism. It's considered one of the classics of this genre.