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Sixty Years of North American Prints: Collecting from the Boston Printmakers
February 9 - April 1, 2007
The Boston University
Art Gallery (BUAG) will host an exhibition to celebrate the 60th Anniversary
of The Boston Printmakers, February 9 - April 1, 
2007.
The exhibition will highlight the work of local, national and international
printmakers, as well as educate the public about the field of printmaking
since 1947. To mark the opening of the exhibition, a reception was held
at the gallery on February 8. (right: Aline Feldman, Rainheld
City, 1997. Woodcut. 39 x 28 3/4 inches. Photo Courtesy of the Art Complex
Museum. Duxbury, MA.)
Exhibition curator, David Acton, who is also curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs at the Worcester Art Museum, has carefully selected the best of the award-winning prints and purchases from The Boston Printmakers' exhibitions over the past 60 years. Actondescribes his selections as "astute and flawless impressions made by some of the finest printmakers working in drastically changing times."The exhibition seeks to incorporate an international flair as well as reflect the growth and expansion of the print medium.
In addition to the display at BUAG, there will also be a companion exhibition entitled Sixty Years of North American Prints: Creating Public Collections at the Art Complex Museumin, Duxbury, MA. While BUAG will feature prints that were purchased by curators and individual patrons (some of which have found their way into public collections), the Art Complex Museum will feature prints that were purchased and donated by The Boston Printmakers to public collections.
Sixty Years of North American Prints: Collecting from The Boston Printmakers at BUAG begins with prints shown at the very first Boston Printmakers exhibition in May of 1948. Among them are works by Otis Phibrick, Ture Bengtz and Arthur Heintzelman, all of whom played instrumental roles in forming the Boston organization, as well as Allan Rohan Crite, Grace Albee, Letterio Calapai, Clare Leighton, and Thomas Nason who joined The Boston Printmakers in its first year. Covering the full 60-year span of development, featured artists of the 1950-60s include Michael Mazur, Richard Bartlett, Nora Unwin, Sigmund Abeles, and Minna Citron, while Warrington Colescott, Aline Feldman, Sidney Hurwitz, Karen Kunc, Masaaki Sato, Donald Stoltenberg, Constance Jacobson, Carol Wax, and Andrew Raftery are among the artists representing the 1970s to the present.
In addition to the opening reception on February 8, a second
reception was held at BUAG at the Stone Gallery on February 18. There will
also be several 
related print making
shows at Boston University concurrently, including The Boston Printmakers
2007 North American Print Biennial and The Fifth Arches Student Print
Show, on display at Boston University's 808 Gallery (February 18 - April
1), as well as Episodes & Itineraries: Installations in Print Media
by South American Artists, on display at Boston University's Sherman
Gallery (January 23 - March 9). (right: Janet Turner. Guinea Fowl,
1950. Linocut. 16 1/2 x 10 1/2 inches (plate). Photo Courtesy of The Boston
Public Library)
Sixty Years of North American Prints is sponsored in part by Ardon Vinyl Graphics, Art Complex Museum, Boston Public LIbrary, De Cordova Museum, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Stanhope Framers, and U.S. Art Company, Inc.
The Boston Printmakers is a nonprofit organization providing Boston and New England patrons access to fine art printmaking since 1948. The Boston Printmakers' extensive print collection is available to the public through the Boston Public Library. The organization adds to this collection every two years with a Purchase Prize awarded to artists through the Print Biennial. In addition to the Print Biennial and the Arches Student Show, The Boston Printmakers sponsors traveling shows and member shows -- which always debut in the Boston area, providing further cultural and learning opportunities to Boston and Greater New England -- as well as promoting global sharing through international printmaking and traveling exhibitions.
Selected supplementary programming
Wall text from the exhibition
In 1947 a group of student printmakers in Boston came together
to share information and exhibition opportunities. They enlisted the
support of faculty sponsors, Otis Philbrick of the Massachusetts College
of Art and Ture Béngtz of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts,
who would become the organization's mainstays when the students moved on
to professional careers. In 1948 the Boston Printmakers mounted their
first exhibition in the fourth-floor room displays at Paine's Furniture
Store. The show had a New England orthodoxy, for most of its prints
looked back to traditions of book illustration and the Etching Revival,
at a time of avant-garde experimentation in American printmaking.
Soon the organization and its shows were among the leading venues for academic
printmaking. They attracted artists who undertook every phase of the
creative process themselves. Many have been teachers, who valued talent
and virtuosity above fashionable taste. Moderation accompanied a principled
democracy, and the exhibitions remained open to all and judged by peers.
The Boston Printmakers' Print Exhibits at the Museum of Fine Arts were among
the most prestigious print shows of the 1950s and 1960s. Thirty years
of unprecedented popularity followed for fine prints, waning only with the
ascent of electronic media. This anniversary exhibition shows how
the Boston Printmakers made history during a dynamic period of American
art, and how it's lively membership and ambitious projects can look forward
to a distinguished future.
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