Fine Art Print Week in New York

An etching is a conversation between artist and plate.
- Rembrandt van Rijn

Printmaking is controlled accident.
- Robert Rauschenberg

It’s Print Week in New York. The glory of Fine Art Printmaking is being celebrated in Manhattan and Brooklyn. 

The primary anchor of the week’s events is being hosted by the  International Fine Print Dealers Association (IFPDA) at the Park Avenue Armory from Thursday, March 27 through Sunday March 30.  

The inaugural edition of the Brooklyn Fine Art Print Fair is taking place at The Powerhouse Arts facility, housed in an enormous 117-year old power plant in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn. Powerhouse Arts is a not-for-profit organization committed to creative expression. 

More than 5oo years of Fine Art Prints will be exhibited at the many galleries in both venues. A vast array of works are included in the Fair, from woodcuts by Durer, etchings by Rembrandt to a variety of print techniques by modern and contemporary artists.

Whether doing ethchings, woodcuts, linoprints, lithographs to screenptinting, printmaking is both time and labor intensive. Print shops, run by master printmakers, began to proliferate in Europe in the eighteenth century. 

Even in the mid-twentieth century, a master print shop was not easy to find. When Gemini G.E.L. was founded in 1966, in Los Angeles, fine artists like Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, Frank Stella, Sam Francis, James Rosenquist, Alex Katz and others worked with the staff at Gemini to create fine art prints that took art in America to a new level of creativity.

Andy Warhol created fine art prints at The Factory, where he had assistants to help him with the process.

One of the most interesting aspects of the fine art prints of Alex Katz is the colors he is able to achieve. His reduction of figure and form looks simple, the colors bold and few, but Katz uses multiple colors, sometimes more than a dozen in a single work, to achieve the minimalist look. 

 
Please contact us if you would like more information about the works of Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, Frank Stella, Sam Francis, James Rosenquist, Andy Warhol, Alex Katz or any other other fine artists whose works are available at Surovek Gallery.