Black Dolphin Prints
organized by Black Dolphin Workshop for the Art Galleries
California State University, Long Beach
February 6—March 5, 1978
Curator Statement
The emphasis here has been upon the lithography workshop because this is where the collaborative relationship in American printmaking has been most fully developed and also because Tamarind served as a model for the Black Dolphin Workshop. In addition, many workshops and artists have been influenced by Stanly William Hayter who brought Atelier 17 from Paris to New York in 1939. Before returning to Europe in 1947, Hayter’s “technical ingenuity had changed the direction of intaglio printing in America.”
His influence has been transmitted to American printmaking students, particularly by Mauricio Lasansky at the University of Iowa and Gabor Peterdi at Yale University. Recently, in addition to the impeccable intaglio printing at ULAE, Kathan Brown’s Crown Point Press has also expanded the technical and formal potential of the medium.
If there was once a paucity of printmaking workshops in the United States, this is no longer the case. It is hoped that in discussing the collaborative relationship in American printmaking, the work of the Black Dolphin Workshop will be better understood by the viewer. And, that through its creative efforts, the Workshop will become a part of this multi-faceted relationship as it exists in printmaking today.
-Maudette Ball