Pulled, Pressed and Screened: Important American Prints Opens at Piedmont Arts

Pulled, Pressed and Screened: Important American Prints—a blockbuster exhibition, featuring works by major artists, including Andy Warhol, Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton, Dorothy Dehner, Jasper Johns, Romare Bearden, Robert Motherwell, Elizabeth Catlett, Roy Lichtenstein and more—will open at Piedmont Arts on Saturday, September 13, 2014. 

Featuring 50 prints by 50 artists that were created within a 50-year period, Pulled, Pressed and Screened provides a profound survey of the activities of artists who put designs on paper from the 1930s to the 1980s. During this exciting period, printmaking underwent changes that shaped the art form as we know it today—beginning with black and white lithographs popularized by regionalists and urban realists in the early half of the 20th century and continuing through the experimental intaglio prints of the 1940s and 1950s, the ‘Pop’ explosion of screen prints in the 1960s and the precision of super realism in the 1970s.

Especially significant during this period are the contributions of women printmakers, as well as the impact of African American artists on the graphic arts. Combined with artists who immigrated to the United States during these decades and the increased numbers of painters and sculptors who took up printmaking, this exhibition makes the egalitarian nature of the print abundantly clear.

"Piedmont Arts is honored to be able to bring an exhibit of this caliber to Martinsville-Henry County," said Director of Exhibitions Heidi Pinkston. "We welcome the entire community to visit the museum and experience this once-in-a-lifetime exhibition, covering 50 years of work from some of America's most impactful artists."

 Pulled, Pressed and Screened: Important American Prints is organized by Syracuse University Art Collection and is drawn from their holdings of more than 12,500 prints of which more than 7,500 are by American artists.

• In conjunction with Pulled, Pressed and Screened, Piedmont Arts invites guests to take part in Press It!, an interactive community exhibition in the Box Mezzanine Gallery. Members of Lynwood Artists designed and created hand-cut linoleum blocks, which guests can use to stamp a design directly onto the gallery wall. The resulting design will be a one-of-a-kind community-created print. A free "sneak peek" of Press It! will be held Saturday, September 6 from 4 – 6 pm during the Martinsville Culture Crawl.

• The exhibition, A 180 Turn: From Numbers to Art, featuring work by Laurie Merritt and Betty Blessin will also be on display in the museum's Lynwood Artists Gallery.

• Pulled, Pressed and Screened: Important American Prints, Press It! and A 180 Turn: From Numbers to Art will be on display at Piedmont Arts from September 13 – November 8, 2014.  Gallery hours are Monday – Friday: 10 am – 5 pm and Saturday: 10 am – 3 pm.

In honor of these exhibits, Piedmont Arts will host a Members-Only Reception on Saturday, September 13 from 5:30 – 7:30 pm at the museum. Piedmont Arts members, prospective members, artists and guests are invited to attend. Complimentary wine and light refreshments will be served. Please RSVP attendance to this event at 276.632.3221 or online at www.piedmontarts.org. This event is sponsored by Imogene and Isadore Draper, Lynn and John Korff, Donna and Richard Lawhon, Lindsay Hoyer and Aaron Rawls, Dr. James E. Rountree, Sr., Brenda and Joe Williams, Lynwood Artists and Piedmont Arts.

Piedmont Arts is a nonprofit art museum in Martinsville, Virginia that facilitates ongoing enrichment of the lives of the people of Martinsville, Henry County and the surrounding area, through positive exposure, education and experiences in the visual and performing arts. Piedmont Arts is a statewide partner of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. Piedmont Arts programming is partially supported by the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. Learn more at www.piedmontarts.org.