The Pratt Graphic Art Center also called the Pratt Graphics Center was a print workshop and gallery in New York. The Center grew out of

Margaret Lowengrund Margaret Lowengrund (b. 1902 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; d. 1957 New York) was an American artist and a key figure in the American Print Renaissance of the 1950s and 1960s. Lowengrund attended at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and also s ...

's Contemporaries Graphic Art Centre. In 1956

Fritz Eichenberg Fritz Eichenberg (October 24, 1901 – November 30, 1990) was a German-American illustrator and arts educator who worked primarily in wood engraving. His best-known works were concerned with religion, social justice and nonviolence. Biography ...

became the Center's director, serving until 1972 . (Sources disagree on whether Lowengrund or Eichenberg should be considered the ''founder'' of the Pratt Graphic Art Center, with most claiming Eichenberg was the founder.) The Center was associated with the

Pratt Institute Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York. It has an additional campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The institute was founded in 18 ...

, providing a space specifically for

printmaking Printmaking is the process of creating work of art, artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand proces ...

. It was used by both students and established artists including

Jim Dine Jim Dine (born June 16, 1935) is an American artist. Dine's work includes painting, drawing, printmaking (in many forms including lithographs, etchings, gravure, intaglio, woodcuts, letterpress, and linocuts), sculpture, and photography. Educ ...

Robert Motherwell Robert Motherwell (January 24, 1915 – July 16, 1991) was an American Abstract Expressionism, abstract expressionist Painting, painter, printmaker, and editor of ''The Dada Painters and Poets: an Anthology''. He was one of the youngest of th ...

Barnett Newman Barnett Newman (January 29, 1905 – July 4, 1970) was an American painter. He has been critically regarded as one of the major figures of abstract expressionism, and one of the foremost color field painters. His paintings explore the sense ...

, and

Claes Oldenburg Claes Oldenburg (January 28, 1929 – July 18, 2022) was a Swedish-born American sculptor best known for his public art installations, typically featuring large replicas of everyday objects. Another theme in his work is soft sculpture versions ...

. Painter and printmaker

Martin Barooshian Martin Barooshian (December 18, 1929- January 25, 2022) was an American painter and printmaker. He is known for his ability to weave a tapestry of art historical influences with modernist elements and a contemporary sensibility. His work frequentl ...

served as Supervisor for the Center's Graphics Workshop for Professionals from 1960-1970, hired by Eichenberg at the behest of

Stanley Hayter Stanley William Hayter (27 December 1901 – 4 May 1988) was an English painter and master printmaker associated in the 1930s with surrealism and from 1940 onward with abstract expressionism. Regarded as one of the most significant printmakers ...

. The Workshop was a primary vehicle for the participation of established artists in the Center. The Center also published a journal, the ''Artist's Proof'' edited by Eichenberg and Andrew Stasik, and had an exhibition space. The Pratt Graphic Art Center closed in 1986. 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 ...

in Washington, DC has collected prints published by the Pratt Graphic Art Center. Artists represented in this collection include

References

Further reading