PHILADELPHIA, PA.- The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts presents Making Community: Prints from Brandywine Workshop and Archives, Brodsky Center at PAFA, and Paulson Fontaine Press, on view February 1 – April 12, 2020 in the Fisher Brooks Gallery of PAFA’s Samuel M.V. Hamilton Building.
This exhibition brings together an exceptional group of nearly one hundred prints from PAFA's permanent collection of American art, selected from nearly two hundred artworks in this medium that have recently been acquired by PAFA. Presented together, these prints provide a compelling overview of contemporary American printmaking over the past forty years, created with a rich range of traditional techniques and technologically new formats, by four generations of influential artists.
Curated by Paola Morsiani, Director of the Brodsky Center at PAFA, this exhibition highlights works created at three important American printmaking workshops: Brandywine Workshop and Archives in Philadelphia; Paulson Fontaine Press in Berkeley, California; and the Brodsky Center at PAFA. Making Community explores the unique collaboration that printmaking entails, between artists and master printmakers in the studios and workshops where these technically complex works are created.
Making Community features works by many of the most significant and acclaimed contemporary artists of the past half-century. These include: Terry Adkins, Emma Amos, Eleanor Antin, Edgar Arceneaux, Nancy Azara, Radcliffe Bailey, Louisiana Bendolph, Mary Lee Bendolph, Loretta P. Bennett, John Biggers, Camille Billops, McArthur Binion, Willie Birch, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Ed Clark, Sonya Clark, Betsy Damon, Mary Beth Edelson, Allan L. Edmunds, Melvin Edwards, Lauren Ewing, Howard Finster, Charles Gaines, Harmony Hammond, Barkley L. Hendricks, Curlee Raven Holton, Lonnie Holley, David Huffman, Margo Humphrey, Richard Hunt, Wadsworth Jarrell, Martha Jackson Jarvis, Samuel Levi Jones, Byron Kim, Joyce Kozloff, Samella Lewis, Alvin Loving, Kerry James Marshall, Clarence Morgan, Tanya Murphy-Dodd, Diane Neumaier, Odili Donald Odita, Pepón Osorio, Loretta Pettway, James Phillips, Howardena Pindell, Robert Pruitt, Martin Puryear, Faith Ringgold, Betye Saar, John T. Scott, Miriam Schapiro, Carolee Schneemann, Joan Semmel, Gary Simmons, Sylvia Sleigh, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Kiki Smith and Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Vincent Smith, Joan Snyder, Nancy Spero, May Stevens, Athena Tacha, Janet Taylor Pickett, Hank Willis Thomas, Lava Thomas, Mickalene Thomas, Richard Tuttle and John Yau, June Wayne, Stanley Whitney, Carl Joe Williams, Deborah Willis, Fred Wilson, and Martha Wilson.
PAFA will host a full series of talks, panels, classes, and other special events in conjunction with Making Community. Selected events include a panel discussion between Allan L. Edmunds of Brandywine Workshop and Archives, Judith Brodsky of the Brodsky Center at PAFA, and Pam Paulson and Rhea
Fontaine of Paulson Fontaine Press; a family papermaking workshop; a day-long celebration of the legacy of printmaking in Philadelphia; and an artist talk and performance from Lonnie Holley, the acclaimed artist and musician whose work is featured in Making Community and in PAFA’s permanent collection. More information on these and other events is available at www.PAFA.org/events.
In 2020, PAFA is celebrating the art of printmaking with two exhibitions devoted to the medium. In addition to Making Community, PAFA will present At One Stroke: Prints by Helen Frankenthaler, an exhibition comprised of prints gifted to PAFA by the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation and curated by the PAFA Youth Council. At One Stroke will be on view concurrently with Making Community.
