A timely reexamination of the experimental New York print studio Atelier 17, focusing on the women whose work defied gender norms through novel aesthetic forms and techniques In this important book Christina Weyl takes us into the experimental New York print studio Atelier 17 and highlights the women whose work there advanced both modernism and feminism in the 1940s and 1950s. Weyl focuses on eight artists-Louise Bourgeois, Minna Citron, Worden Day, Dorothy Dehner, Sue Fuller, Alice Trumbull Mason, Louise Nevelson, and Anne Ryan-who bent the technical rules of printmaking and blazed new aesthetic terrain with their etchings, engravings, and woodcuts. She reveals how Atelier 17 operated as an uncommonly egalitarian laboratory for revolutionizing print technique, style, and scale. It facilitated women artists' engagement with modernist styles, providing a forum for extraordinary achievements that shaped postwar sculpture, fiber art, neo-Dadaism, and the Pattern and Decoration movement. Atelier 17 fostered solidarity among women pursuing modernist forms of expression, providing inspiration for feminist collective action in the 1960s and 1970s. The Women of Atelier 17 also identifies for the first time nearly 100 women, many previously unknown, who worked at the studio, and provides incisive illustrated biographies of selected artists.

Surimono poetry prints are among the finest examples of Japanese woodblock printmaking of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Consisting of witty poetry combined with related images, surimono were often designed by leading print artists and were exquisitely produced using the best materials and most sophisticated printing techniques. Unlike the ukiyo-e prints of actors, courtesans and landscapes that were being commercially published around the same time, surimono were never intended for sale to the general public. Instead they were privately published in limited editions by members of poetry clubs, to present to friends and acquaintances on festive occasions, especially at the New Year. This book introduces over forty surimono in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum and provides readers with an insight into the refined and cultivated Japanese literati culture of the early nineteenth century. As well as exploring the customs, legends, figures and objects depicted, it presents new translations of the humorous poems (kyoka) that lie at the heart of surimono, and highlights the intricate relationship that existed between the poetry and accompanying images. This will be the first time that the Ashmolean's collection of surimono, mostly from the Jennings-Spalding Gift and containing a number of rare and previously unpublished prints, has ever been catalogued.

American artist Sam Francis (1923-1994) brought vivid colour and emotional intensity to Abstract Expressionism. He was described as the "most sensuous and sensitive painter of his generation" by former Guggenheim Museum director James Johnson Sweeney, and curator Howard Fox called him "one of the acknowledged masters of late-modern art." Francis's works, whether intimate or monumental in scale, make indelible impressions; the intention of the artist was to make them felt as much as seen. At the age of twenty, Francis was hospitalised for spinal tuberculosis and spent three years virtually immobilised in a body cast. For physical therapy he was given a set of watercolours, and, as he described it, he painted his way back to life. The exuberant colour and expression in his paintings celebrated his survival; his five-decade career was an energetic visual and theoretical exploration that took him around the world. Francis' idiosyncratic painting practices have long been the subject of speculation and debate among conservators and art historians. Presented here for the first time in this volume are the results of an in-depth scientific study of more than forty paintings from the late 1940s to early 1990s, which reveal new discoveries about his creative process, inventive techniques, and specially formulated paints and binders. The data provides a key to the complicated evolution of the artist's work and informs original art historical interpretations.

Joe Tilson RA (b.1928) is one of the great figures in post-war British art and a pivotal artist of the British Pop Art movement during the 1960s. Still working, and still evolving, he has continued to explore many new directions and a great variety of mediums since moving away from his Pop origins. Astonishingly, no general monograph documenting all these phases of Tilson’s prolific production has ever been published. This book remedies this through a series of insightful chapters, exploring each decade of the artist’s career, written by Marco Livingstone, a respected authority on British contemporary art. Featuring a lively and visually rich design, this unique work will guide the reader through the evolution of one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary British art.

Very thorough, step-by-step coverage, from printing simple monograms to converting photographs to block prints and printing in two or more colors. Lettering, silhouettes, borders, and other basic techniques, plus inks, materials, projects. 175 illustrations. "...one of the really fine books on that subject."-Grand Junction (Colorado) Sentinel.

A highly important figure in the late eighteenth-century British art world, John Raphael Smith was the most robust and prolific printmaker of his time. Smith not only produced nearly 400 prints-about 130 of his own design and the others by such noted British artists as Joshua Reynolds, George Romney, and Joseph Wright of Derby-he was also appointed "Mezzotinto Engraver" to the Prince of Wales and became an impresario of the print-publishing trade. This book is the first full-length study for nearly a hundred years of Smith's remarkable career in printmaking. Ellen D'Oench investigates how Smith conducted his engraving and publishing business and what his prints, drawings, and paintings reveal about the culture and morality of the society that viewed them. She includes a chronological catalogue raisonne with newly discovered works, an inventory of his firm's publications, and a catalogue of prints reproduced from his own original work. Along with full biographical information on Smith and his activities as an artist and publisher, D'Oench pays close attention to the contemporary art market, its operation, and the placement of Smith's products within it. She details Smith's fascination with female genre subjects and his use of printed images to both exploit and critique his culture's manners and morals. Historians of paintings and prints, social and cultural historians, and scholars of women's history will all find in this book an array of delightful illustrations and interesting material. Published for the Paul Mellon Center for Studies in British Art

A new, up-to-date edition of this popular and comprehensive encyclopedia on printing techniques by professional artist Judy Martin. This inspirational, visual guide offers a wealth of information on the techniques and materials you'll need before embarking on your printing pursuits. Starting with your equipment and safety essentials, all the different methods of printmaking are covered, from monoprinting, wood engraving and etching to intaglio printing, screen-printing and more. Then, learn how to apply these methods yourself by following the helpful, illustrated step-by-step demonstrations inside to create your own printed pieces. There is even advice on how to take your printmaking even further, with suggestions on organising studio space at home or in a commercial environment. Finally, a stunning gallery of images created by professional printmakers, featured throughout the book provides inspiration for your own beautiful artwork.

Manga from the Floating World is the first full-length study in English of the kibyoshi, a genre of woodblock-printed comic book widely read in late-eighteenth-century Japan. By combining analysis of the socioeconomic and historical milieus in which the genre was produced and consumed with three annotated translations of works by major author-artist Santo Kyoden (1761-1816) that closely reproduce the experience of encountering the originals, Adam Kern offers a sustained close reading of the vibrant popular imagination of the mid-Edo period. The kibyoshi, Kern argues, became an influential form of political satire that seemed poised to transform the uniquely Edoesque brand of urban commoner culture into something more, perhaps even a national culture, until the shogunal government intervened. Based on extensive research using primary sources in their original Edo editions, the volume is copiously illustrated with rare prints from Japanese archival collections. It serves as an introduction not only to the kibyoshi but also to the genre's readers and critics, narratological conventions, modes of visuality, format, and relationship to the modern Japanese manga and to the popular literature and wit of Edo. Filled with graphic puns and caricatures, these entertaining works will appeal to the general reader as well as to the more experienced student of Japanese cultural history-and anyone interested in the global history of comics, graphic novels, and manga.