The History of American Printmaking

Selections from the Permanent Collection

Arizona State University Art Museum
at the Nelson Fine Arts Center
November 9, 2002 through January 12, 2003

Thomas Hart Benton, Slow Train Through Arkansas, 2001
Lithograph, 9 15/16 x 13 7/8"
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Read Mullan
Collection of the ASU Art Museum.


 

The History of American Printmaking:
Selections from the Permanent Collection

Recently the ASU Art Museum received a gift of 190 prints from Melvin and Ellen Hellwitz. At the core of this gift are many examples of the best American printmakers from the early half of the 20th century. This gift created an opportunity to highlight that time period. The Museum now presents selections from that gift and other prints from the permanent collection.

Though there are a few prints from the 1920s, the focus of the exhibition is the volatile time of the 1930s-1940s. The nation was in a period of isolationism during the Great Depression and was bracing for the possibility of entering the Second World War. Roosevelt’s New Deal generated temporary economic reforms which incorporated support for American art and artists through government programs that brought art into the public sector, schools and government buildings: the Section of Painting and Sculpture in the Treasury Department and the Federal Art Project in the Works in Progress Administration. As a result of the government support, there was renewed interest in printmaking as a medium that could reach a broad segment of the population and the artists of the period were encouraged to produce works with a distinctly American spirit.
The resulting work was categorized as the American Scene movement, divided by some critics into two branches: the Regionalists and the Social Realists. Regionalists reflected rural America, romanticized views of country life as seen in the work by Thomas Hart Benton, Slow Train through Arkansas, 1941; John Steuart Curry, Sanctuary, 1944; and Grant Wood, Shrine Quartet, c. 1939. Social Realists depicted life in the American city, often with social and political commentary, such as in Margaret Lowengrund’s Breadline, 1930s and Rockwell Kent’s, And Now Where, 1936.

Private presses and publishing firms were also very important in the development and propagation of the American Scene prints. The Associated American Artists (AAA) published etchings and lithographs by American artists and advertised their purchase – for $5. each – on the back of periodicals. This increased access to prints from the city art markets to a larger American audience brought prints to more urban areas, such as Arizona. Many of the prints included in this exhibition were produced by AAA and acquired by the Hellwitzs and other donors such as Oliver B. James, Mr. & Mrs. Read Mullan, Helen Shipley, Mr. & Mrs. Orme Lewis, and Robert Bell and Stirling Puck.

The American Scene movement declined with the insurgence of aesthetic influences from European artists escaping World War II. But the movement continues through this collection of prints, gifted to the ASU Art Museum by its generous supporters.ASU Art Museum Presentation

Organized by Jean Makin, The History of American Printmaking will be installed in the Multi-Purpose Gallery of the Arizona State University Art Museum's Nelson Fine Arts Center location.
 
Duration
The History of American Printmaking: Selection from the Permanent Collection (November 9, 2002 - January 12, 2003) is open Tuesday from 10am - 9pm, Wednesday through Saturday from 10am to 5pm, and Sunday from 1pm to 5pm.
 
Support
The exhibition and related programs are supported in part by Friends of the ASU Art Museum.