Curated by Harper Montgomery
Opening Reception: March 10, 6-8pm
On View: March 11 - May 28, 2011

A 10^th ANNIVERSARY EVENT!

International Print Center New York presents Artists Collect: Prints from the Collections of Sol LeWitt, Kiki Smith, Philip Taaffe and Richard Tuttle, on view March 10 - May 28, 2011 in its gallery at 508 West 26^th Street, Room 5A. An Opening Reception will be held at IPCNY on Thursday, March 10, 6-8 pm.

Artists Collect consists of fifty-four prints and books from the personal collections of four major artists. The exhibition includes work dating from 1558 to 2006, from sixteenth-century natural history books, to German Romanticist etchings, to Japanese woodblocks, Syrian relief prints, and work by contemporary printmakers such as John Baldessari and Jasper Johns. The exhibition reflects the breadth of interests among the four lenders as well as the diversity within each artist’s collection.

In Ms. Montgomery’s words, “the idea for this exhibition is to display groups of printed things—high and low and from all periods and cultural traditions—that have been acquired by artists who are engaged in making prints themselves. I’d like to show as many aspects of how artists collect as possible: Artists who are systematic collectors, those who acquire things casually, trade with friends and colleagues, and/or collect historical objects and printed images that relate to their work in one way or another.” An illustrated brochure with a curatorial essay will accompany the exhibiton.

Specifics of the works on view are as follows:

From the LeWitt Collection, prints by: Carl Andre, John Baldessari, Gene Beery, Gilbert and George, Dan Graham, Barbara Kruger, Sylvia Plimack Mangold, Robert Ryman, Pat Steir, Cy Twombly,Alan Uglow, Konishi Hirosada, Katasushika Hokusai, and Utagawa Yoshiiku.

From the collection of Kiki Smith, prints by: Lee Bontecou, Louise Bourgeois, John Cage, Angus Ferhurst, Beka Goedde, Jasper Johns, Rachel Ostrow, Pablo Picasso, Joel Shapiro, and Jacques Villon.

From the collection of Philip Taaffe: a selection of anonymous Syrian relief prints; a selection of natural history books from the 16th, 17th and 18th Centuries, by: Ulisse Aldrovandi, Jan Swammerdam, Pietro Andrea Matthioli, Conrad Gesner and Jan Jonston.

From the collection of Richard Tuttle, prints by: Josef Albers, Lovis Corinth, Albert Christoph Dies, Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich (Dietricy), Ludwig Emil Grimm, Konrad Hoff, Max Klinger, Carl Wilhelm Kolbe and Johann Anton Ramboux.

IPCNY is grateful to the artists, and to the the Estate of Sol LeWitt, who so generously loaned work for this exhibition.

Harper Montgomery received her Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Chicago. During the summer of 2010 she was a Fellow at the Stone Summer Theory Institute at the Art Institute of Chicago and her studies at the University of Chicago were supported by numerous fellowships. She was an assistant curator in the Department of Prints and Illustrated Book at The Museum of Modern Art between 1998 and 2003, and North American curator of the San Juan Poly/graphic Triennial in 2004. As a curator, she has commissioned projects by Daniel Joseph Martinez, Francis Alÿs, and Temporary Services, among other artists and groups. Ms. Montgomery co-curated IPCNY’s ¡Impresionante!:Innovative Prints by Contemporary Puerto Rican Artists. She has written for InterReview, is a critic for Art Nexus, and currently lives in New York.

A grant from The Robert Lehman Foundation supports IPCNY’s exhibitions programming.

Sponsors of IPCNY’s 10th Anniversary Season are The Edward John Noble Foundation, Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Deborah Loeb Brice Foundation, The Felicia Fund, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, Hess Foundation, Charles S. Mott Foundation, Reed Foundation, Arthur Ross Foundation, and numerous individual donors.