By KATHERINE L. BLOOD and DEBORAH CULLEN
Robert Blackburn, born in 1920 in Summit, N.J., changed the course of American art through his groundbreaking graphic work and the Printmaking Workshop, which he founded in New York City in 1948. Conceived as an open, democratic space where printmaking was the common language, for five decades the Printmaking Workshop was a cultural crossroads, attracting artists from around the world, and seeding similar workshops in the United States, Morocco and Namibia. Today, Blackburn's own pioneering contributions to the technical and aesthetic development of abstract color lithography are as legendary as his generosity in encouraging and training thousands of diverse artists to explore the graphic medium.
Realized by the Library of Congress in collaboration with the International Print Center in New York and the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, the exhibition "Creative Space: Fifty Years of Robert Blackburn's Printmaking Workshop" features some 60 artworks from the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop Archives and Collection, now on deposit at the Library of Congress. The Library exhibition and its programming were made possible through the generous support of Merrill Lynch.
The exhibition includes a core selection of Blackburn's own graphic art along with a rich array of prints from the 1940s to the 1990s by his many collaborators and students, friends and colleagues. They include such renowned artists as Will Barnet, Romare Bearden, Kathy Caraccio, Ronald Joseph, Mohammed Khalil, Faith Ringgold and Juan Sanchez. Totaling more than 2000 works, the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop Collection and Archives provides a unique record of Blackburn's remarkable legacy over the past 50 years–documenting a little-told history of 20th-century printmaking in America by artists of diverse styles and backgrounds from around the world.
About Robert Blackburn
Growing up in Harlem in the 1920s and 1930s, Blackburn was influenced by the
intellectual and artistic ferment of the Harlem Renaissance as well as European
abstract art and the aesthetic and political ideologies of both American social
realism and Mexican modernism. As a teenager, he learned lithography at the
Harlem Community Art Center, which was sponsored by the Depression-era Works
Progress Administration (WPA). While in his 20s, he studied for three years
at the Art Students League. He then went on to do freelance artistic work for
institutions such as the Harmon Foundation and began to forge his signature
abstract style amidst the varied modernist currents he encountered. In 1948,
he opened his own studio, the Printmaking Workshop, launching the oldest and
largest non-profit print workshop in the United States.
After a period of travel and study in Europe, in 1957 Blackburn became the first master printer for the contemporary fine print workshop, Universal Limited Art Editions (ULAE), where he worked until 1963. He printed the first 79 editions for the prestigious printshop, setting the technical and aesthetic standard by which ULAE exerted a powerful influence on modernist printmaking in America. His own complicated, varicolored abstractions prefigured and complemented more familiar ULAE works. However, his early experiments in color lithography during the 1950s literally helped fuel the extraordinary explosion in American graphic art that occurred in the next decade.
In 1971, the Printmaking Workshop became a non-profit corporation, with a mission to maintain creative and artistic quality, support and encourage innovation, create opportunities for Third-World and minority artists, and foster public appreciation of the fine art print. Through the vehicle of his workshop, Blackburn has directly influenced thousands of artists–as master printer, technical adviser, fundraiser, friend, diplomat, catalyst and artistic instigator.
The Exhibition
Co-curated by guest scholar Deborah Cullen from the Museo del Barrio, with Katherine
L. Blood from the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, "Creative
Space" showcases selected works from the Printmaking Workshop Collection and
Archives in five sections, each set in the context of Robert Blackburn's life
and work. The exhibit begins with a look at Blackburn's early career and influences
in "Milieu: The Harlem Community Art Center and the WPA." This section focuses
on his formative experiences within the 1930s arts community in uptown New
York, including art teachers, friends and colleagues at the time. Featured
works include a drawing made by Blackburn when he was just 16, and works by
such artists as Ernest Crichlow, Roy DeCarava, Jacob Lawrence and Hale Woodruff.
The second section, "Founding the Printmaking Workshop," follows Blackburn's development from his time at the Art Students League and his experience as a freelance artist during the 1940s to the opening of his own studio in 1948. During the 1940s and 1950s, Blackburn encountered varied modernist currents in New York, including "Indian Space Painters," Abstract Expressionism, and the aesthetics of such Atelier 17 printmakers as Terry Haass and Reuben Kadish (both represented in this section). The work of Will Barnet, Blackburn's early mentor and longtime friend, is also highlighted, along with prints by Antonio Frasconi, Tom Laidman and John Von Wicht. Also on display are Blackburn's own works from this time, which show his increasing explorations in abstraction and complex multi-color lithography.
The exhibition continues with "A Graphic Explosion," describing Blackburn's professional and artistic journey in the 1950s and 1960s. From 1957 to 1963, he was the first master printer at the prestigious Universal Limited Art Editions (ULAE) lithographic press in Long Island, N.Y. At ULAE, Blackburn collaborated with such prominent Abstract Expressionist and Pop artists as Larry Rivers, Helen Frankenthaler, Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. In most cases, he taught the painters how to make lithographs, sharing his sensibility and approach to the stone. At the same time, Blackburn's own color graphics reached a creative and technical zenith, and this section focuses on his mature lithographs, revealing his move away from figurative work to pure abstraction. In 1963, he left ULAE and returned to operating his own workshop in Manhattan's Chelsea district full time.
The fourth section, "Incorporation, Experimentation, and Outreach," focuses on works by Blackburn and Printmaking Workshop artists during the 1970s and 1980s, a time of increased exposure and support. By now celebrated in the printmaking community for its remarkable climate of openness, innovation, and creative and intellectual cross-fertilization, the workshop continued to bring together a wide variety of artists, including longtime friend Romare Bearden, master printer Kathy Caraccio, and intaglio pioneer Krishna Reddy, whose works are on view. Examples of collaborative ventures by such renowned creators as Emma Amos, Vincent Fitzgerald, Marjorie Van Dyke, John Wilson and Susan Weil are also displayed. Blackburn's investigations in woodblock-printing and works by other artists active in the workshop at this time, including Robin Holder and Michael Kelly Williams, are part of this section.
Finally, "Seeds and Collaborations" looks at the history of the Printmaking Workshop as a catalyst and model within the international printmaking community. It was directly responsible for "seeding" similar schools and workshops, including the Lower East Side Printshop in New York City, the Asilah Workshop in Morocco, and even the first Namibian printshop for black artists in post-apartheid South Africa. Featured in this last section are works by Camille Billops and Mohammed Khalil, both of whom worked with Blackburn to establish the Asilah print studio, and other internationally active Printmaking Workshop artists such as Diogenes Ballester, Elizabeth Catlett, Suzanne Scherer and Pavel Ouporov. Also on view are contemporary works from the 1980s and 1990s by such artist/printmakers as Willie Birch, Mel Edwards (in collaboration with poet Jayne Cortez), Ana Golici, Margo Humphrey, Rudzani Nemasetoni and Kay WalkingStick.
"Creative Space: Fifty Years of Robert Blackburn's Printmaking Workshop" opened originally in the galleries of the International Print Center New York on Nov 26, 2002, where it remained on display through Jan. 25. It subsequently opened at the Library of Congress on Feb. 25 as part of the Library's celebration of African American History Month, with additional display objects and full descriptive texts for each artwork. The show will remain in the North Gallery of the Great Hall until June 28.
Public programming during the exhibition includes guest lectures by artist, collector and historian of African American art, David Driskell, on the Harlem Renaissance; and by multifaceted printmaker, sculptor and teacher, Camille Billops, on her experiences helping Blackburn establish the Asilah printmaking workshop in Morocco.
"Creative Space" can be viewed on the Library's Web site at www.loc.gov/exhibits/.
Katherine L. Blood is the fine prints curator in the Library's Prints and Photographs Division and Deborah Cullen is a curator at El Museo del Barrio in New York.