Pomegranate Communications is a publishing and printing company formerly based in

Petaluma, California Petaluma is a city in Sonoma County, California, United States, located in the North Bay (San Francisco Bay Area), North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. Its population was 59,776 according to the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. ...

, having moved to

Portland, Oregon Portland ( ) is the List of cities in Oregon, most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon, located in the Pacific Northwest region. Situated close to northwest Oregon at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, ...

in 2013. The company, founded by Thomas F. Burke, began by publishing works of

psychedelic art Psychedelic art (also known as psychedelia) is art, graphics or visual displays related to or inspired by psychedelic experiences and hallucinations known to follow the ingestion of psychedelic drugs such as lysergic acid diethylamide, LSD, psil ...

from

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

in 1968 under the name ThoFra Distributors. It distributed posters for concerts at

Avalon Ballroom The Avalon Ballroom was a music venue in the Polk Gulch neighborhood of San Francisco, California, at 1244 Sutter Street (or 1268 Sutter, depending on the entrance). The space is known as the location of many concerts of the counterculture mov ...

and

The Fillmore The Fillmore is a historic music venue in San Francisco, California. Built in 1912 and originally named the Majestic Hall, it became the Fillmore Auditorium in 1954. It is in Western Addition, on the edge of the Fillmore District and Upper Fil ...

. Anchored in

visual arts The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics (art), ceramics, photography, video, image, filmmaking, design, crafts, and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual a ...

, Pomegranate was active in book

publishing Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...

in the past as well, especially during the 1990s. Adjustments in that sector caused it to reduce involvement accordingly. Currently calendars - long a mainstay - remain a strong part of their catalog, along with coloring books for all ages, nature books and puzzles. In its current form, Pomegranate is best described as a museum publisher, collaborating with institutions such as the

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art is an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of charge, the museum was privately established in ...

, the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

, the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...

, the

Smithsonian Museum of American Art The Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM; formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds one of the world's lar ...

, the

Sierra Club The Sierra Club is an American environmental organization with chapters in all 50 U.S. states, Washington, D.C., Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. The club was founded in 1892, in San Francisco, by preservationist John Muir. A product of the Pro ...

, the

Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Taliesin West ( ) is a studio and home developed by the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright in Scottsdale, Arizona, United States. Named after Wright's Taliesin (studio), Taliesin studio in Spring Green, Wisconsin, Taliesin West was Wright's ...

, and the

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the list of largest art museums, 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 painting ...

. It is the

licensee A licensee can mean the holder of a license or, in U.S. tort law, is a person who is on the property of another, despite the fact that the property is not open to the general public, because the owner of the property has allowed the licensee to en ...

for artists

M. C. Escher Maurits Cornelis Escher (; ; 17 June 1898 – 27 March 1972) was a Dutch graphic artist who made woodcuts, lithography, lithographs, and mezzotints, many of which were Mathematics and art, inspired by mathematics. Despite wide popular int ...

Edward Gorey Edward St. John Gorey (February 22, 1925 – April 15, 2000) was an Americans, American writer, Tony Awards, Tony Award-winning costume designer, and artist, noted for his own illustrated books as well as cover art and illustration for book ...

Charley Harper Charley Harper (August 4, 1922June 10, 2007) was a Cincinnati, Ohio, Cincinnati-based United States, American Modernism, Modernist artist. He was best known for his highly stylized wildlife prints, posters, and book illustratio ...

Wolf Kahn Wolf Kahn (October 4, 1927 – March 15, 2020) was a German-born American painter. Kahn, known for his combination of Realism and Color Field, worked in pastel, oil paint, and printmaking. He studied under Hans Hofmann, and also graduated from ...

Georgia O'Keeffe Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 March 6, 1986) was an American Modernism, modernist painter and drafter, draftswoman whose career spanned seven decades and whose work remained largely independent of major art movements. Called the "M ...

, and Gustave Baumann. Its monograph by Elizabeth Murray - ''Monet’s Passion'' has been reprinted extensively, and Irene Hardwicke Olivieri's ''Closer to Wildness'' has thrived.

Books published by Pomegranate

*''Visions'', introduction by

Walter Hopps Walter "Chico" Hopps (May 3, 1932 – March 20, 2005) was an American museum director, gallerist, and curator of contemporary art. Hopps helped bring Los Angeles post-war artists to prominence during the 1960s, and later went on to redefine pract ...

(1977) , with works by

Cliff McReynolds Cliff McReynolds is an American visionary painter from California. Active since the 1950s and popularly known from the 1970s on, his work has been seen in one man shows and group exhibits in New York City, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Minneapolis, M ...

, Bill Martin, Thomas Akawie and

Gage Taylor Gage Taylor (1942 – 2000) was a visionary artist known for his psychedelic-inspired landscapes. Art critic Thomas Albright wrote, "Taylor's landscape fantasies combined profuse detail with heavier, painterly surfaces and achieved a 'naive' and n ...

. *''In Pursuit of the Unicorn'', (1980) , by Josephine Bradley, with works by Kirwan (illustrator), Susan Seddon Boulet (illustrator), Charles Ware (illustrator), Niki Broyles (illustrator), Sandy Stedronsky (illustrator), Marjette Schille (illustrator), Jay Burch (illustrator) *'' The Addams Family: An Evilution'', 2010 , by H. Kevin Miserocchi, with works by

Charles Addams Charles Samuel Addams (January 7, 1912 – September 29, 1988) was an American cartoonist known for his darkly humorous and macabre characters. Some of his recurring characters became known as the Addams Family, and were subsequently populari ...

(illustrator) *''Haiku: Japanese Art and Poetry'', 2010 , by Judith Patt, Barry Till, and Michiko Warkentyne *''Growing Old is not for Sissies: Portraits of Senior Athletes'', 1986, by Etta Clark

References

External links

Official Pomegranate website
Psychedelic art M. C. Escher Companies based in Portland, Oregon Jigsaw puzzle manufacturers {{publish-company-stub