The Art of The Print: Prints about Printmaking

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Grand Re-Opening of the

Historic Childs Gallery Print Room

Open House: Sunday, May 7, 2017, 11 AM – 5 PM

Exhibition:

The Art of the Print: Prints about Printmaking

April 17 – May 26, 2017

New Hours:

Tuesday – Friday, 9 am to 6 pm

Saturday & Sunday, 11 am to 5 pm

BOSTON, MA – Childs Gallery’s eagerly awaited and newly renovated Print Room re-opens this month with the thematically apropos exhibition, The Art of the Print: Prints about Printmaking. The newly reimagined space, occupying the lower floor of the gallery and now with direct access from Newbury Street, offers a unique setting to explore and collect original fine art prints, including woodcuts, engravings, etchings, lithographs, and screen prints.

Collectors can select prints and drawings ranging from Old Masters like Dürer, Rembrandt, Goya and Piranesi, to American and European notables like Whistler, Zorn and Picasso, Moderns like Milton Avery, Stuart Davis, and Jackson Pollock, and Contemporary artists including Chuck Close, Sean Flood, and Emily Lombardo.

The public is invited to attend an Open House on Sunday, May 7th, from 11 AM to 5 PM to celebrate the re-opening of the Print Room.

The Childs Gallery Print Department has been a historic mainstay of the gallery since its founding. The gallery was established by Charles D. Childs in 1937 on Newbury Street in Boston’s Back Bay. Prior to opening the gallery, Childs had worked at the legendary Goodspeed’s Book Shop – a Beacon Hill antiquarian bookstore and print shop – where he learned the business side of art collecting and the importance of being an educated mentor to those interested in collecting.

The Print Department itself has a long and storied past. In addition to being the training ground for many people who have gone on to become important dealers in the print world, it has also placed some of the greatest works in print and on paper into major collections. Charles D. Childs highlights just a few of the many rarities that have passed through the gallery’s Print Department in his introductory essay to the 1976-1977 Print Annual:

“Dürer’s engravings such as the first state of Adam and Eve; Rembrandt’s etchings including the famous Hundred Guilder Print, Christ Healing the Sick; the frequently sought rare complete set of Samuel Palmer’s landscape etchings (now in the Cleveland Museum); Whistler’s full sets of Thames and Venice etchings; Goya’s rare last set, the Tauromaquia; eighty-two drawings for major historical paintings by John Singleton Copley (many now in the Metropolitan Museum);… all passed through the Gallery’s hands in a now unbelievable, uninterrupted flow.”

Eighty years later, current owners Richard Baiano and Stephanie Bond carry on the role of educated mentors for today’s collectors, continuing to place important works into major collections. Childs Gallery now holds one of the largest inventories of prints, drawings, oil paintings, watercolors, and sculpture in the United States.

The newly renovated Print Room offers clients the opportunity to peruse original fine art prints in an approachable setting. “The reorganization and reinstallation of the inventory makes it more accessible to the general public. Works are now sorted by categories of interest, such as Boston Scenes, German Expressionism, Social Realism, or The Nude,” says Julie Edwards, Director of Operations at the gallery. Much like searching for queries on the web, we hope our new user-friendly format will help to make the collecting of fine art prints accessible to the next generation of collectors.

The gallery will rotate its print room exhibition every 6 to 8 weeks. Currently on view is the aptly themed exhibition The Art of the Print: Prints about Printmaking, open April 17 – May 26, 2017. Art is often self-referential, and fine art printmaking is no exception. Printmakers throughout history have been drawn to the medium itself as a subject for their work. The Art of the Print brings together a fascinating array of etchings, engravings, lithographs, and woodcuts depicting various aspects of the printmaking process. The exhibition includes works by Auguste Delâtre (French, 1822-1907), Felix Buhot (French, 1847-1898), Armin Landeck (American, 1905-1984), Bernard Brussel-Smith (American, 1914-1989), and Erik Desmazières (French, b. 1948), among others.