Museums Acquire, Display Works Created at the Experimental Printmaking Institute

Locations are the University of Delaware Art Museum, the Idaho Black History Museum, the Cohen Gallery in Reading, Pa., and the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum

Prints created at the Experimental Printmaking Institute recently have been exhibited or added to the permanent collections at the University of Delaware Art Museum, the Idaho Black History Museum, the Cohen Gallery at the GoggleWorks Center for the Arts in Reading, Pa., and the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum in Massachusetts.

Legacy, a serigraph print created by Curlee Raven Holton, professor of art and director of EPI, was placed in the permanent collection of the University of Delaware Art Museum. The print previously was part of a university exhibition titled Discursive Acts: African American Art at UD and Beyond.

Holton created the limited-edition fine art print to celebrate and support Transcendence, a campus sculpture honoring Lafayette’s first African American graduate, David Kearney McDonogh 1844. Legacy was produced in an edition of 100 and “incorporates both historical and contemporary references and speaks to the importance of the relationship of Lafayette’s African American alumni to the College and larger issues of educational opportunities locally and nationally,” Holton says.

EPI also produced a limited edition serigraph by internationally renowned artist Faith Ringgold, Black History Museum of Idaho. Holton was on hand when the print was unveiled in January at the Boise Art Museum in Idaho. The 100-print edition was produced in collaboration between Ringgold, Holton, and EPI to benefit the Idaho Black History Museum and the Boise Art Museum.

In February 2008, Ringgold visited Boise for a lecture, book signing, and other related programs in conjunction with the exhibition at the Boise Art Museum, Faith Ringgold: Mama Can Sing Papa Can Blow. The artist was so moved by her experiences there that she decided to create a print for a fundraiser benefiting the two museums.

Fifty prints created in collaboration with Holton and visiting artists at EPI are on display through April 2 in the Cohen Gallery at the GoggleWorks Center for the Arts in Reading. The exhibit, Message is in the Medium: The Art of Collaboration in Printmaking, represents the breadth and diversity of EPI’s print collection, ranging from traditional etchings to experimental mixed media works. This work exemplifies the innumerable possibilities of individual exploration and expression inherent in printmaking.

Artists represented in the collection include Richard Anuszkiewicz, David C. Driskell, Melvin Edwards, Sam Gilliam, Grace Hartigan, Martha Jackson Jarvis, Al Loving, Ringgold, Kay WalkingStick, and many others. Viewers also will gain insight into the relationship between the printmaker and the artist. Susan Ellis, director of programs for EPI, curated the exhibition.

Several prints created by Ringgold at EPI also are on display at the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum in Massachusetts. The exhibition, Faith Ringgold: Works on Paper, will run through May 31.

This exhibit focuses on Ringgold’s work on paper over the last three decades, a lesser known aspect of her extensive and multiform body of work. The show includes more than 25 prints and small paintings, echoing the themes of protest that characterized her early work with narrative subjects familiar from her quilts, as well as examples from her recent series on jazz musicians.