Robert Blackburn
Kathy Caraccio
Devraj Dakoji
Eduardo Fausti
Edward Fausty
Ana Golici
Elizabeth Harrington
Robin Holder
Denise Kasof
Mohammad Khalil
Lenore RS Lim
Armando Lonodono
Otto Neals
Suzanne Scherer
Pavel Ouporov
Sarah Sears
Lynne Taetzsch
Bruce Waldman
Leslie Wasserberger
Gwen Williams
Alexander Zakharov
...and the Printmaking Workshop. A Tribute to Robert Blackburn 1920 - 2003. Prints by the late Blackburn and more than a dozen of his students at the Printmaking Workshop in New York City.
...and the Printmaking Workshop
A Tribute to Robert Blackburn 1920 - 2003
Paul Sharpe Contemporary Art (PSCA) announces the opening of a
new exhibit entitled Bob Blackburn and the Printmaking Workshop, featuring
prints by the late Blackburn and more than a dozen of his students at the
Printmaking Workshop in New York City.
This unique look at various members of the Printmaking Workshop will be
presented along with a few prints which Blackburn himself made. Lenore RS Lim
and Denise Kasof have acted as coordinators for the exhibit, inviting colleagues
from the PWS to participate in the show which is curated by Paul Sharpe. In
contrast to the CREATIVE SPACE: Fifty Years Of Robert Blackburn's Printmaking
Workshop, presented this spring by the Library of Congress, which presented
Blackburn along with some of the masters of the 20th century, this show features
printmakers in New York who are exhibiting their works as a tribute to the
outstanding accomplishments and contributions Blackburn made during his lifetime
to both the technique and advancement of printmaking and to the resources and
mentoring he provided to developing printmakers, many of whom were minorities.
The show features the following 22 artists:
Robert Blackburn, Kathy Caraccio, Devraj Dakoji, Eduardo Fausti, Edward Fausty,
Ana Golici, Elizabeth Harrington, Robin Holder, Denise Kasof, Mohammad Khalil,
Lenore RS Lim, Armando Lonodono, Otto Neals, Suzanne Scherer and Pavel Ouporov,
Sarah Sears, Lynne Taetzsch, Bruce Waldman, Leslie Wasserberger, Gwen Williams,
and Alexander Zakharov. The artists' names in bold indicate those who were
included in the recent exhibit at the Library of Congress.
Robert Blackburn was born in Summit, New Jersey, in 1920 and grew up in Harlem.
He passed away in New York City in April 2003. He attended public schools,
including PS5, and he studied at the Arts Students League, where he was taught
by Will Barnet, who later co-founded the Printmaking Workshop with him in 1948.
He also studied at the Uptown Art Laboratory, Wallace Harrison School of Art,
and Atelier 17. According to the Library of Congress text, "Blackburn was
influenced by the intellectual and artistic legacies of the Harlem Renaissance
as well as European abstraction and the artistic ideologies and political
tendencies of both American social realism and Mexican modernism."
Blackburn studied at the Harlem Recreation Arts Center, where he met Romare
Bearden, Roy DeCarava, Langston Hughes, Jacob Lawrence, and Paul Robeson. His
teachers were Selma Burke, Aaron Douglas, Palmer Hayden, Jacob Lawrence, and
Augusta Savage, who were employed as part of the WPA/FAP (Works Progress
Administration/Federal Art Project). This was one of the few centers in which
black students worked exclusively under the tutelage of black artists, exploring
lithography, etching, woodblock making, and silk screening. The HRAC closed in
1941 and the WPA ended in 1943. One of Blackburn's most significant prints is
People In A Boat, 1937, which he created when he was 17 at the HRAC. From 1957
to 1963, Blackburn was the first master printer to be associated with Universal
Limited Art Editions (ULAE), where he printed for Jim Dine, Helen Frankethaler,
Grace Hartigan, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, and Larry Rivers, and his
work in the 1950s helped spur the art graphics explosion of the 1960s.
The Printmaking Workshop was originally established in 1948 as The Creative
Graphic Workshop and was named the Printmaking Workshop in 1963 and incorporated
as a not-for-profit in 1971. Lithography, etching, relief printing, and
photoetching processes were available. This diversified atmosphere, both in
terms of techniques and the world-class calibur of participating artists,
provided a creative experience superior to that of established educational
settings. The PMW was a place of dedication, encouragement, and an embracing
sense of community for such artists as Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence, Faith
Ringgold, Betye Saar, Augusta Savage, and Ursala Von Rydingsvard.
Blackburn has taught at Columbia University, Cooper Union, The New School for
Social Research, New York University, and the School of Visual Arts. He did not
attend college. In 1992, he received the John T and Catherine D MacArthur
Foundation Fellowship and in 2000, Blackburn received Lifetime Achievement
Awards from the College Art Association and the National Fine Print Association.
His Printmaking Workshop influenced literally thousands of artists and its
archives, equipment, and materials have been moved to the Elizabeth Foundation
for the Arts in New York for preservation and for a new work space to be
entitled the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop.
Opening June 11th, 6 - 9 PM, thru July 12th.
ADMISSION Free
RSVP 646 613 1252
The gallery is open on Wednesday through Saturday from Noon to 6 PM, and by
appointment.
Image:
Bob Blackburn Urban Renewal, 1996, A/P First Proof,
Second Printing, Lithograph, 19 x 21 inches
Paul Sharpe Contemporary Art
86 Walker Street Floor Six New York NY 10013
646 613 1252
(Walker is one block below Canal Street, between
Broadway and Lafayette)