If you plan to catch the tail end of the Whitney Biennial, there is an amuse-bouche nestled in the museum’s permanent collection that grounds the palate after that cerebral and political display.

At only 20 works — 18 prints and two books under glass — “Wanda Gág’s World” is hardly a world at all. It’s a window into one. But the view is worth it: a graphic artist hypersensitive to printmaking and perception, and maybe miscast for the hundred years we’ve known of her.

Born in Minnesota to Bohemian immigrants, Wanda Gág fulfilled her artist father’s dying words — “What Father began, Wanda will have to finish” — when she reached New York in 1917, at age 24, first to pursue fashion illustration and then children’s books. Among those she authored and illustrated until her death in 1946 were her delightfully frank translations of the Grimm fairy tales from her native German, and “Millions of Cats” (1928), her prose ballad about an elderly couple who get more than they bargained for when seeking feline companionship.

“Millions of Cats” is considered today a classic in children’s literature, not least for its finely detailed spot illustrations — including wild tabbies stampeding hillsides — that punctuate the story’s comic refrain. One spread is on view here. But as the book enters the public domain this year, Roxanne Smith and Scout Hutchinson of the Whitney have focused on Gág’s lesser-known lithographs (and one linoleum print) for grown-ups.

Lithography — in which a limestone slab is treated to hold ink wherever you draw upon it — promises great detail and fidelity. And “Macy’s Stairway” (1941), an apartment hallway scene, wants to be read. From an upper landing of the staircase, we count 11 folds in the fire hose hung on the wall, nine balusters supporting the handrail, six spokes in the valve of the standpipe …