Print Heaven

After a morning spent working on my paper, I headed over to the Park Avenue Armory for a fantastic treat! I was able to attend the IFPDA Print Fair. This is a trade show, basically, run by the International Fine Print Dealers Association, and it is comprised of a huge room filled with booths rented by galleries and art dealers who specialize in fine art prints. There, buyers can stroll around and pick things out for their homes, their business, their museum, or whatever. I talked to Joe Goddu of Hirschl & Adler Gallery, which sells prints among other antiques. He said that half his sales are to museums. In his booth he had some fantastic prints by Max Weber, carved from cigar boxes and printed by sandwiching the paper between the inked-up cigar box carving and a telephone book, and standing on it!

I saw just one print (pictured) by one of my favorite printmakers, Elizabeth Catlett. I also saw prints by favorites Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton, Wayne Thiebaud, and Marie Cassatt--and a William Blake! There were some gorgeous Japanese woodblock prints, too, of course. And I discovered the work of Erik Desmazieres, a contemporary printmaker living in Paris, who had some exquisite aquatint & roulette images of print-shop interiors, and the view out his window. Thomas French, whose gallery represents the estate of artist George Bellows, had some fantastic Bellows prints, and he talked to me about the collaboration between Bellows and his printers. Bellows is very well known for his images of boxing matches, which he painted and rendered in lithographs.

Three hours of wandering around looking at prints and I still didn't want to go, but I had so many other things to do that I forced myself away. I had to go visit The Flower Girl at the Met one more time before finishing my paper this weekend. While I was looking at it, a man came up and started exclaiming about how realistic the flowers were. It really is pretty amazing, and what I'm curious about is why so few of Ingham's other paintings are like The Flower Girl. This is something that I may have to look into further, beyond this assignment for school.

After that, I headed downtown to the American Museum of Folk Art, because it was Free Music Friday! That is when they let you in for free and you get to listen to live music while you look at the art. The MOMA was free tonight too, but I wasn't up for big crowds. At the Folk Art museum, which is one of my favorite museums in New York, they have an exhibition of work by Jewish immigrants of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A whole room is full of carved lions, which are used in the synagogue to flank the decalogue--I think. My brain was really full by that time, and I was more into just looking than reading the labels. Anyway, most of the lions had glass eyes, but one pair made in the 1920s had little red lightbulb eyes! Can you imagine seeing those in church, looking at you?

Apparently, the Jewish immigrants brought over an amazing tradition of paper-cut pictures, which are mind-bogglingly intricate. And, most of the fantastically carved and decorated carousel animals at Coney Island and other permanent carnivals were carved by Jewish immigrants, and the museum has some amazing ones on view.

Such a great day, full of so much amazing art! Now I'm ready to close my eyes and just rest.