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Exhibition Checklist
Ghada Amer
Egyptian, 1963Superman and the Birds, 2002
Screenprint, 26/30
28½ x 22½ inches
Ardath Rodale Art Acquisition Fund, 2014.
(2014.21)
Elizabeth Catlett
American, 1915-2012
Black is Beautiful, 1968
Etching, 1/100
13¾ x 18 inches
Experimental Printmaking Institute,
Lafayette College
Mary Lovelace O’Neal
American, 1942Racism is Like Rain, Either it is Raining
or it is Gathering Somewhere, 1993
Lithograph, AP XXVIII/XXX
13¼ x 22 inches
David C. Driskell Center Collection
Emma Amos
American, 1938Art Heaven, 2006
Digital print with fabric appliqué, 2/100
30 x 20 inches
David C. Driskell Center Collection,
Promised Gift from Mrs. Jean and
Dr. Robert E. Steele Collection
Robin Holder
American, 1952Release from Warrior Women Wizards:
Mystical Magical Mysteries, 1986
Linoleum cut with stencils, 1/16
15¼ x 22 inches
David C. Driskell Center Collection,
Gift of the Artist
Emma Amos
American, 1938Boogie, 1999
Monotype
13½ x 9¼ inches
David C. Driskell Center Collection,
Promised Gift from Mrs. Jean and
Dr. Robert E. Steele Collection.
Robin Holder
American, 1952They Damaged Us More Than Katrina,
2006
Screenprint and etching, 1/70
26¼ x 18¾ inches
David C. Driskell Center Collection,
Gift from Mrs. Jean and
Dr. Robert E. Steele Collection
Mary Lovelace O’Neal
American, 1942Running Freed More Slaves Than
Lincoln Ever Did, 1997
Screenprint, 7/20
16½ x 23½ inches
David C. Driskell Center Collection,
Promised Gift from Mrs. Jean and
Dr. Robert E. Steele Collection
Louisiana Bendolph
American, 1960Doorway to a Dream, 2013
Soft ground etching with aquatint and
spitbite aquatint, 7/50
28½ x 32½ inches
Ardath Rodale Art Acquisition Fund, 2014.
(2014.22)
Mary Lee Bendolph
American, 1935Passing By, 2006
Soft ground etching and spitbite aquatint
with chine collé, 30/50
38½ x 427/8 inches
Courtesy of Dolan/Maxwell, Phila., PA.
Mary Lee Bendolph
American, 1935Get Ready, 2006
Soft ground etching and aquatint, 38/50
357/8 x 427/8 inches
Courtesy of Dolan/Maxwell, Phila., PA.
Chakaia Booker
American, 1953Four Twenty One, 2010
Mixed media and chromogenic print
on glass, 5/12
35½ x 23½ inches
Experimental Printmaking Institute,
Lafayette College
Chakaia Booker
American, 1953Untitled, 2011
Woodcut with chine collé, 38/200
20½ x 25 inches
Gift of Geri Mickenberg, 2014. (2014.16)
Elizabeth Catlett
American, 1915-2012
The Sharecropper, 1952 (printed
1968/70)
Linoleum cut, 36/60
175/8 x 1615/16 inches
SOTA Print Fund, 2009. (2009.27)
Faith Ringgold
American, 1934You Put The Devil in Me from the Mama
Can Sing Jazz Suite, 2004
Screenprint, 1/100
19 x 28 inches
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Kaplan, 2004.
(2004.25)
Margo Humphrey
American, 1942Sunday Afternoon, 1988-89
Offset lithograph, screenprint, and hand
coloring, 34/60
28½ x 40½ inches
David C. Driskell Center Collection,
Promised Gift from Mrs. Jean and
Dr. Robert E. Steele Collection
Faith Ringgold
American, 1934Absolute Tyranny from the series
Declaration of Freedom and
Independence, 2009
Screenprint, 6/35
15 x 22½ inches
Experimental Printmaking Institute,
Lafayette College
Margo Humphrey
American, 1942The Red Bed, 2005
Lithograph, V/XX
26½ x 25 inches
David C. Driskell Center Collection,
acquired with the C. Sylvia and
Eddie Brown Arts Acquisition Fund
Faith Ringgold
American, 1934All Men are Created Equal from the
series Declaration of Freedom and
Independence, 2009
Screenprint, 6/35
15 x 22½ inches
Experimental Printmaking Institute,
Lafayette College
Julie Mehretu
American, 1970Entropia Construction, 2005
Lithograph with chine collé, 4/4
40 x 4913/16 inches
Ardath Rodale Art Acquisition Fund.
(2014.19)
Wangechi Mutu
American, 1972The Original Nine Daughters, 2012
Suite of nine etchings with aquatint,
linoleum cut, and collage, 24/30
18¾ x 10 inches each
Published by Pace Editions
Lentby Jean-Paul Russell and
Ann Marshall, Durham Press, PA
Toyin Odutola
American, 1985If She Doesn’t Say Anything, Then It
Never Happened, 2012
Lithograph, 12/16
25 x 19 inches
Ardath Rodale Art Acquisition Fund, 2014.
(2014.10)
Faith Ringgold
American, 1934And Women from the series Declaration
of Freedom and Independence, 2009
Screenprint, 6/35
15 x 22½ inches
Experimental Printmaking Institute
Lafayette College
Faith Ringgold
American, 1934As Free and Independent States from
the series Declaration of Freedom
and Independence, 2009
Screenprint, 6/35
15 x 22½ inches
Experimental Printmaking Institute,
Lafayette College
Acknowledgements
Faith Ringgold
American, 1934Taxes on us Without our Consent from
the series Declaration of Freedom
and Independence, 2009
Screenprint, 6/35
15 x 22½ inches
Experimental Printmaking Institute,
Lafayette College
Faith Ringgold
American, 1934We Have Appealed to Their Native
Justice and Magnanimity from the
series Declaration of Freedom and
Independence, 2009
Screenprint, 6/35
15 x 22½ inches
Experimental Printmaking Institute,
Lafayette College
Faith Ringgold
American, 1934To Be Or Not To Be Free, 2014
Lithograph, 28/60
30 x 22 inches
Ardath Rodale Art Acquisition Fund, 2014.
(2014.20)
Alison Saar
American, 1956Cotton Eater, 2014
Woodcut on found sugar sack quilt pieces,
3/6
72 x 34 inches
Ardath Rodale Art Acquisition Fund, 2014.
(2014.18)
Alison Saar
American, 1956Brierpatch Blues, 2014
Screenprint and woodcut, AP 3/8
38 x 24 inches
Experimental Printmaking Institute,
Lafayette College
Alison Saar
American, 1956Brierpatch Blues, 2014
Woodblock
38 x 24 inches
Experimental Printmaking Institute,
Lafayette College
Betye Saar
American, 1926Adori, 1973
Lithograph and collage
14¼ x 11 inches
David C. Driskell Center Collection,
Gift of Nene Humphrey from the
Benny Andrews and Nene Humphrey
Collection
Betye Saar
American, 1926The Long Memory, 1993
Screenprint, 81/120
14½ x 11¾ inches
David C. Driskell Center Collection
Betye Saar
American, 1926Bookmarks in the Pages of Life, 2000
Bound artist book illustrated with six
screenprints; 40/300
Text is a selection of short stories
by Zora Neale Hurston.
15 x 11¼ inches (illustration pages)
David C. Driskell Center Collection,
Gift from the Sandra and
Lloyd Baccus Collection
Mickalene Thomas
American, 1971Sleep, Deux Femmes Noires, 2013
Woodcut, screenprint, and digital
print, /25
38½ x 80½ inches
Printed and Published by Durham Press
Lent by Durham Press
Kara Walker
American, 1969Freedom, A Fable: A Curious
Interpretation of the Wit of a
Negress in Troubled Times, 1997
Bound volume of offset lithographs and
five laser-cut, pop-up silhouettes
8¼ x 9¼ inches
Anonymous Lender
Kara Walker
American, 1969An Unpeopled Land in Uncharted
Waters, 2010
no world: 27 x 39 inches
beacon (after R.G.): 27 x 11 inches
savant: 27 x 17 inches
the secret sharerer: 27 x 27 inches
buoy: 27 x 35½ inches
dread: 27 x 15 inches
Set of six etchings with aquatint, sugar-lift,
spit-bite and drypoint, 16/30
Published by Sikkema Jenkins & Co.,
New York, printed by Burnet Editions,
New York
Lentby Jean-Paul Russell and Ann
Marshall, Durham Press, PA
Carrie Mae Weems
American, 1953Tell me, I beseech you, when I casted
my vote to you, did I cast it to the
wind?, 1996
Chromogenic print
20 x 24 inches
Ardath Rodale Art Acquisition Fund, 2014.
(2015.01.1)
Carrie Mae Weems
American, 1953Hush our Silence from Exit Art, 2003
Chromogenic print
337/8 x 297/8 inches
Ardath Rodale Art Acquisition Fund, 2014.
(2015.01.2)
Deborah Willis
American, 1948I Made Space for a Good Man, 2009
Offset lithograph
15 x 29½ inches
Lent by Deborah Willis
David Mickenberg
Priscilla Payne Hurd President and CEO
When thinking about the origins of an exhibition it is often impossible to think of its beginnings other
than of the moral, intellectual, and aesthetic imperative felt in bringing it to fruition. In this region,
and within the walls of the Museum, the confluence of knowledge, of dedication to the field of
printmaking, to the presentation of new ideas and research, and to the excellence and importance
of the artists made Interventions in Printmaking: Three Generations and African American Women a
phenomenal undertaking.
Interventions in Printmaking: Three Generations and African American Women could not have
occurred without the extraordinary efforts and assistance of Dan Haxall, Associate Professor of
Art History at Kutztown University. Throughout the organization of this exhibition he has guided the
parameters of the project, helped identify artists, and agreed to write all of the didactic information
in the exhibition. As a curatorial partner, as a friend of the Museum, and of art in general, the Museum
could not have asked for more.
The exhibition could not have been brought to fruition without Curlee Holton, new Director of the
David C. Driskell Center at the University of Maryland, College Park, and founder and Director of
the Experimental Printmaking Institute at Lafayette College. His advocacy for artists, his role as a
collaborator in an essentially collaborative process, and his willingness to share has made him a
good friend and colleague.
The Museum is indebted to Jean-Paul Russell, Ann Marshall, and the entire staff of Durham Press.
Key works to this exhibition came from their generosity and the extraordinary work done by the Press.
No exhibition would be possible without the extraordinary efforts and expertise of the Museum’s staff.
All Museum practice is a collaborative effort on the part of many. Without Bev Hoover, Steve Gamler,
Sofia Bakis, and Kim Tanzos, Interventions in Printmaking would not have been designed, installed,
and accessible with such finesse and beauty. Maureen Connolly, Tom Edge, Janet Egbert, Colleen
Fitzpatrick, Don Gunn, Missy Hartney, Rhonda Mauk Hudak, Joe Kimock and the entire Office of
Security, Lalaine Little, Julia Marsh, Elaine Mehalakes, John Pepper, Chris Potash, Linda Schmoyer, Irene
Smith, and Sharon Yurkanin, have all worked tirelessly to make Interventions in Printmaking a reality.
As with all exhibitions at the Allentown Art Museum, Interventions in Printmaking has been supported by
numerous friends and patrons who have ensured our continued excellence and growth. Interventions
in Printmaking has been funded through the generosity of the Audrey & Bernard Berman Endowment
Fund, the Leon C. & June W. Holt Endowment, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the National
Endowment for the Arts, and the Members and Trustees of the Museum.
31 North Fifth Street
Allentown, PA 18101
610.432.4333
www.allentownartmuseum.org
Wed, Fri, Sat 11AM – 4PM
Thurs 11AM – 8PM
Sun 12PM – 4PM
January 25 to April 12, 2015
Allentown Art Museum of the Lehigh Valley
I
N CELEBRATION OF BLACK HISTORY MONTH, the Allentown Art Museum presents Interventions in
Printmaking: Three Generations of African American Women. This exhibition features works from
the Museum’s permanent collection and from distinguished regional collections by some of the
most significant artists working today. During the past fifty years, these women have brokered
new technologies and approaches to printmaking, collaborating with renowned studios
and printers to address issues pertaining to history, identity, and politics. Through figural modes of
representation as well as various forms of abstraction, these African American women have created
brilliantly drafted lithographs, colorful etchings and silk-screens, and conceptually rich photographs,
thereby enriching the print medium and its capacities.
“Afrofemcentrism” and
Pioneers in Printmaking
▲ Faith Ringgold
You Put the Devil in Me, from the Mama Can Sing
Jazz Suite, 2004
Screen print on wove paper, ed. 1/100, 19” x 28”
AAM, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Kaplan, 2004.
(2004.25)
COVER:
Elizabeth Catlett
The Sharecropper, 1952 (printed 1968/70)
Color linocut, ed. #30/60
AAM, Purchase: SOTA Print Fund, 2009. (2009.27)
The first section of the exhibition features
a generation of artists born prior to World
War II who achieved critical acclaim
during the Civil Rights Era. These pioneers
studied printmaking domestically and
abroad, including Elizabeth Catlett
(1915-2012), who worked at the People’s
Graphic Arts Workshop in Mexico City, a
prestigious studio dedicated to public
art and social change. She adopted a
similar ethos in etchings and linocuts that
sympathetically portray the working class,
important figures in African American
history, and other subjects omitted from
art history. Likewise, Faith Ringgold
(b. 1934) focuses on racism and
discrimination while celebrating women
and their achievements. Some of her
prints expose the contradictions of the
Declaration of Independence by pairing
the realities of African Americans against
the ideals of the Founding Fathers, while
others honor her maternal ancestors
and their artistic talents. After studying
printmaking in college, Emma Amos (b.
1938) became the only female member
of Spiral, the legendary collective of black
artists that gathered at Romare Bearden’s
studio in the early 1960s. Her prints feature
personal narratives as well as heroines
from popular music, reflecting the diversity
of women’s lives and experiences.
In the 1980s, art historians began using
the word “Afrofemcentrism” to describe
the art of Catlett, Ringgold, and
others. Accordingly, they affirmed the
experiences of African American women
by activating them as subjects rather than
objects. Betye Saar (b. 1926) maintains this
spirit, fusing social commentary, mysticism,
and autobiography in sculptural
assemblages and prints. Saar created
serigraphs to accompany the stories of
writers like Zora Neale Hurston, and draws
from her diverse heritage while engaging
vernacular traditions, including spirit
catchers and shadow boxes, for her art.
In 2002, a touring exhibition introduced
American audiences to the quiltmakers
of Gee’s Bend, Alabama, a secluded
community where women have created
patterned textiles since the nineteenth
century.
Mary Lee Bendolph (b. 1935) learned
the art from her mother and grandmother,
and collaborated with Paulson Press in
Berkeley, CA, to produce prints based
on their abstract forms. Using an inventive
technique to transfer small-scale quilts
onto an etched plate, Bendolph
recreated the geometric designs of
Gee’s Bend on paper, demonstrating
the innovative processes of such pioneers
in printmaking.
“My Own Territory”:
Autobiography and Abstraction
While many of the artists associated
with “Afrofemcentrism” rose to
prominence in the 1960s and 1970s,
a younger generation emerged in
the following decades that further
explored printmaking and its capacities.
Some continued to mine the personal
experiences and complicated histories
of African American women, while others
applied the language of abstraction
and appropriation to print mediums.
Alison Saar (b. 1956) followed in
the footsteps of her mother, Betye,
integrating African forms with Latin
American and Caribbean traditions
in sculptures and prints. She often
sources materials with a historic legacy,
such as the sugar sacks for Cotton
Eater (2014), to engage memory and
religion. The body, particularly that of
women, remains central to Saar and her
contemporaries, indicating the legacy
and influence of “Afrofemcentrism.” For
example, Margo Humphrey (b. 1942)
and Robin Holder (b. 1952) fuse
autobiographical narratives with critical
reflections on society in work created at
the Tamarind Institute in Albuquerque,
NM, and Robert Blackburn Printmaking
Workshop in New York, NY, respectively.
Humphrey often combines elements
of European Expressionism with folk
and decorative art, a style she calls
“sophisticated naïve,” while employing the
print medium to create “my own territory.”
Holder synthesizes references to jazz
music, the Harlem Renaissance, Mexican
muralists, and her diverse background into
stories about women, current events, and
migration.
The impulse to recount personal
histories continued in the decades
following the Civil Rights Era, with artists
adopting various means to communicate
their experiences. Carrie Mae Weems
(b. 1953) and Deborah Willis (b. 1948)
emerged as major photographers and
academics in the 1980s and 1990s,
and both join traditional typographic
processes with photographic transfers.
Weems often appropriates preexisting
images and combines them with text
to reference social and private issues
ranging from family and domesticity
to representations of race. She was
awarded a MacArthur Foundation
“Genius Grant” in 2013, while Willis
became chair of New York University’s
Department of Photography and a
celebrated scholar and artist. Her
photographic portfolio depicts bodybuilders, pregnant women, shotgun
houses, African American communities
in the South, and her own struggles with
gender and racial prejudice.
The use of figuration and narrative
characterizes many of the prints
produced by African American artists,
however others eschew representation
to investigate aesthetic concerns and
formal issues. Chakaia Booker (b. 1953),
Mary Lovelace O’Neal (b. 1942), and
Louisiana Pettway Bendolph (b. 1960)
have created compelling abstractions
with dynamic colors and rich textures,
collaborating with internationally known
printers to produce technically complex
artworks. Booker, primarily a sculptor,
worked at both the Blackburn Workshop
and Experimental Printmaking Institute
in Easton, PA, to assemble papers and
woodblocks into multilayered, gestural
compositions. O’Neal trained as a painter
but studied printmaking throughout the
world, including Taller 99 in Santiago, Chile,
and Blackburn’s studio in New York. Her
lithographs and woodcuts reflect her
Chakaia Booker
Untitled, 2011
4 block woodcut with 65 piece chine collé, ed. of
200, 20½” x 25”
AAM, Gift of Geri Mickenberg, 2014.
interest in Abstract Expressionism, while
the titles offer reflections about racism
in America. Like Alison Saar, Louisiana
Pettway Bendolph is a multi-generational
artist, following in the footsteps of her
mother-in-law, Mary Lee Bendolph, and the
Gee’s Bend quilters. Known for rearranging
the elements of a traditional “housetop”
pattern into dynamic prints, Bendolph
creates geometric abstractions akin to
those of Booker and O’Neal. Ultimately,
the artists who followed the Civil Rights Era
shared the concerns of their predecessors
while diversifying the print medium through
their use of expressionism, photography,
and abstraction.
The Post-black Generation
and African Diaspora
In an exhibition at the Studio Museum in
Harlem, curator Thelma Golden used the
term post-black to describe the current
generation of artists who redefine notions
of race while contesting the boundaries
and limitations of African American
identity. Golden titled the show Freestyle
to reflect the openness and diversity of
these artists versed in postmodern theory
and adept in various mediums. References
to popular culture, art history, and identity
politics remain prominent in post-black art,
whereas globalization, colonial histories,
and social taboos surface regularly in prints
produced throughout the African diaspora.
Kara Walker (b. 1969) is known for
beautiful yet unsettling images that derive
from the antebellum South and silhouette
traditions. Her provocative artworks often
include gratuitous representations of
violence and sexuality, plumbing the
desires and anxieties of our historical
imagination. Where Walker draws
inspiration from early American history,
Mickalene Thomas (b. 1971) addresses
European art history to interrogate notions
of feminine beauty, sexual orientation, and
identity construction. Thomas restages
paintings by Courbet and other famous
artists, inserting dark-skinned women into
roles commonly played by whites to
reconsider the sources of inspiration for
European modernism. In a similar way,
Julie Mehretu (b. 1970) addresses the
legacy of abstraction by constructing
compositions from layers of architectural
drawings, maps, and improvised
markings. These complex works chronicle
human behavior and its discontents,
as evidenced by her print Entropia
Construction (2005), a swirling image of
disorder and dislocation appropriate for
today’s social and political climates.
Mehretu was born in Ethiopia, one of
several artists in the exhibition from
Africa who currently reside in the United
States. Egyptian artist Ghada Amer (b.
1963) was educated in France and lives
in New York. Celebrated for works that
explore the contradictions of women
in society, particularly within Islam and
Western culture, Amer juxtaposes images
of sexuality with domesticity, instances
▲ Ghada Amer
Superman and the Birds, 2002
Screenprint
AAM, Purchase: The Ardath Rodale Art Acquisition
Fund, 2014.
▲ Toyin Odutola
If She Doesn’t Say Anything, Then It Never
Happened, 2012
One-color lithograph, ed. 12/16
AAM, Purchase: The Ardath Rodale Art
Acquisition Fund, 2014. (2014.10)
of figuration with moments of abstraction,
and traditions of fine art with decorative
crafts. Her screenprints maintain these
dichotomies and align Amer with artists like
Wangechi Mutu (b. 1972) by contesting
the representation of women in mass
media. Originally from Kenya but a resident
of Brooklyn, Mutu creates beautiful yet
grotesque representations of women through
collage and found imagery, exploring
topics such as globalization, colonialism,
fashion, and pornography. Mutu’s highly
developed drafting skills connect her with
Toyin Odutola (b. 1985), a Nigerian artist
raised and educated in Alabama. Odutola
crafts “portraits” with black hues to question
the audience’s associations with blackness.
Lithographic ink might establish a racial
context for the subject, or the color could
stem solely from artistic process. In these
unique ways, the constructed nature of
identity remains a major topic for post-black
artists, maintaining the legacy and influence
of African American women printmakers.