OMA to Present Selections from the Contemporary American Graphics Collection
July 10, 2015
More than 150 prints -- including works by major artists of the past 50 years -- will be available for businesses and organizations in Central Florida to lease, as the Orlando Museum of Art's Council of 101 Corporate Lease Program hosts an exhibition of the Museum’s Contemporary American Graphics Collection.
Selections from the Contemporary American Graphics Collection -- the most comprehensive of its kind in Florida -- will be available and open to the public from July 11-26 at the Orlando Museum of Art.
Artists' work that will be available include those from Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, Andy Warhol and others who helped establish the primacy of American art in the mid-20th century. These are followed by key artists working in a succession of expressive modes that include hardedge and lyrical abstraction, minimalism, conceptual art, photorealism, neo-expressionism and other styles associated with contemporary art in the past two decades.
"The works in this collection reflect extraordinary developments in fine art printmaking since the 1960s," explained Hansen Mulford, the Orlando Museum of Art's curator. "During this period, a number of adventurous young master printers established workshops that included new models for working collaboratively with artists. Shops such as Universal Limited Art Editions (U.L.A.E.), Tamarind Lithography Workshop and Gemini G.E.L. sought out leading artists of the day and challenged them to be experimental and innovative with print media. Artists were given the opportunity to work with teams of skilled master printers in a studio environment where ideas were freely exchanged in an effort to produce ground breaking work. The results achieved from that time to the present established fine art printmaking as a major genre within contemporary art. Featured in this exhibition are selected prints from the collection that are available for lease through the Council of 101 Corporate Lease Program."
Beginning in 1975 with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Contemporary American Graphics Collection was fueled by volunteer support and further funding from the Museum’s Council of 101. The Corporate Lease Program is administered by Council of 101 volunteers who oversee the leasing of a limited number of these prints to businesses and organizations in Central Florida. In placing this artwork in publicly accessible areas, the Council of 101 provides additional opportunities for the Museum to display its collection to a public audience. The collected fees enable the purchase of new prints, therefore allowing the collection to grow year after year. After a designated time, each print is retired from the Corporate Lease Program and exhibited only in the Museum.
For more information about the Corporate Lease Program, please contact the Council of 101 office at 407.896.4231 ext. 254 or councilof101@omart.org.
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Image credit: Alison Elizabeth Taylor, Scratch, 2013 , Screenprint, archival ink jet, laser cut wood veneer, collage, silver and gold leaf, edition 15/30 20 1/2 x 28 in. Purchased with funds provided by the Council of 101. © The Artist / Courtesy James Cohan Gallery, New York and Shanghai.