Off the Walls, Into Your Home: A Print Collecting Primer

How does someone start collecting art? When is a print an original work of art? The happy confluence of two events offer a prime opportunity to explore these questions. At the Blanton, the exhibition Off the Walls: Gifts from Professor John A. Robertson celebrates the voracious eye of one print aficionado. From January 15 to February 15, 2021, the exhibition coincides with the annual fair organized by PrintAustin, an artist-led nonprofit organization working to showcase traditional and contemporary approaches in printmaking. Together, these shows spotlight the incredible richness that prints have to offer—both technically and aesthetically. In advance of PrintAustin’s February 6th fine art print fair, PrintExpo, Annalise Gratovich and Pepe Coronado, two artist leaders on PrintAustin’s board, will offer their insights on contemporary printmaking, publishing, and collecting. Genevra Higginson, a co-curator of Off the Walls and Curatorial Assistant for Prints and Drawings, will host the discussion. Join them for a dive into the wonderful world of prints.

This event complements our February 9 Curated Conversation, What’s the Deal?: A Print Collecting Primer (Part 2)

About our Speakers

Annalise Gratovich is a print-centric artist specializing in etchings and woodcuts. She exhibits nationally and internationally and travels as a guest artist and lecturer to Universities and print shops where her work is published. Annalise has a professional background in print publishing, curating, and collections management, and currently resides in the Prints and Drawings Department of the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, Texas. She sits on the Board of Directors of PrintAustin and Marfa Community Print, organizations promoting printmaking through education and community engagement.

Annalise’s work engages themes of personhood and identity at the intersection of longing and belonging. Her figurative work draws upon personal and cultural identity and ancestral stories, alluding to a time and place that is far away and perhaps cannot be returned to. She creates her prints by hand from start to finish, carving wood, etching metal, dyeing paper, and using manual printing presses to create multiple originals.

Genevra Higginson is the Curatorial Assistant for Prints and Drawings at the Blanton Museum of Art. She recently highlighted five women artists in the print collection for the museum’s blog. Prior to joining the Blanton, Genevra held positions at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Genevra earned her master’s degree in early modern print culture at the Courtauld Institute of Art, and her undergraduate degree in art history at the University of Virginia.

Pepe Coronado was born and raised in the Dominican Republic and currently resides between New York City and Austin, Texas. Coronado is a founding member of the print collective Dominican York Proyecto GRAFICA, founder of Coronado Print Studio, and was a resident teaching artist at the Hudson River Museum in New York. He has taught printmaking at Purchase College School of Art and Design, SUNY; at the Corcoran College of Art; Georgetown University; and at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, where he earned the Master of Fine Arts. Coronado was a master printer for Pyramid Atlantic in Silver Spring, Maryland; the Hand Print Workshop International in Alexandria, Virginia; and the Serie Print Project in Austin, Texas. He has been a visiting artist at Self Help Graphics in Los Angeles.

Coronado’s work is in many collections including The Smithsonian American Art Museum,; The Archives of American Art; Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College, MA.; The Rutgers Archives for Printmaking Studios; CUNY Dominican Studies Institute, City College of New York City; El Museo del Barrio; El Museo Latino; Georgetown University, Lauinger Memorial Library of Rare Books and Prints Collection; The Library of Congress; The Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation; The Federal Reserve Board of Governors Art Collection; District of Columbia Government: Arts and Humanities Commission; and El Paso Museum of Art and Mexic-Arte Museum.

Image Credit: Philip Guston, Pile Up (detail), 1980, lithograph, 19 x 29 in., Blanton Museum of Art, Bequest of John A. Robertson, 2018 © The Estate of Philip Guston, courtesy Hauser & Wirth