Prints! The Joan and Stuart Levin Collection

Prints! The Joan and Stuart Levin Collection celebrates Los Angeles collectors Joan and Stu Levin’s exceptional collection of contemporary works on paper. Married a few days after their college graduation, the young couple moved to New York City in 1962. Joan and Stu’s continued identification with this critical political period in American history inspires much of their collecting interests to this day. Capturing the dynamism of the 1960s, this selection of prints from their collection focuses on artists who transformed the landscape of contemporary art, establishing printmaking’s increasingly central role as an innovative form of artistic expression for a growing network of artists.

At the beginning of the 1950s, printmaking was largely viewed as a specialized mode of artistic production. As a new generation of artists sought ways to push against the individualism of Abstract Expressionism, however, the artistic collaboration and mechanized effects afforded to them by printmaking practices led to a growth in the medium.Using techniques previously associated with commercial-mass production, Pop Artists such as Andy Warhol employed silkscreen to create hard-edged works with bold swaths of color, while artists such as Jasper Johns often used lithography for its painterly approach to materials. Contemporary print ateliers, or workshops, also played an essential role in exploring this range of printmaking practices. Featuring works by artists such as Robert Rauschenberg published by these contemporary print ateliers including Universal Limited Art Editions (ULAE) and Gemini G.E.L., this exhibition explores the seminal role workshops played in establishing printmaking as a pioneering medium within the landscape of contemporary art.

This exhibition has been curated by Sarah Bane, Phd. Art History. The AD&A Museum would like to extend their deepest thanks to Joan and Stuart Levin for sharing their collection and stories with our audiences. Prints! The Joan and Stuart Levin Collection has been generously supported by the Museum Council.