NEW YORK – The International Fine Print Dealers Association (IFPDA) will present its annual Print Fair from Thursday, Nov. 5 through Sunday, Nov. 8 at New York’s celebrated Park Avenue Armory with an international roster of 84 IFPDA member-dealers exhibiting. The crown jewel of New York Fine Art Print Week is the IFPDA’s Nov. 4 gala preview party, which offers ticketholders a first look at important masterworks and new contemporary projects.
Exhibiting dealers reserve their finest works for this established annual event, which draws the most influential curators and collectors in the field. Exhibitors include renowned international galleries, leading contemporary print publishers and distinguished private dealers from Paris, London, Amsterdam, Berlin, and Zurich, as well as major U.S. cities.
David Roberts, director of Alan Cristea Gallery and IFPDA board member commented: “The IFPDA Print Fair at the Park Avenue Armory is the premier event of its kind, [exhibiting] the full breadth of historical and contemporary printmaking.”
Refreshing this year’s roster are IFPDA members Pia Gallo (New York), R.E. Lewis and Daughter (San Rafael, Calif.), A + D Martinez (Paris), Sragow Gallery (New York), and Ian MacKenzie (London), who are returning after a year or more’s absence.
New members exhibiting for the first time include The Tolman Collection, a specialist in contemporary Japanese prints; Paul Stolper, a London-based dealer exhibiting new editions and print portfolios from contemporary British artists Keith Coventry, Jeremy Deller, Susie Hamilton, and Damien Hirst; Chicago dealer Platt Fine Art, a specialist in 19th- and 20th-century American artists; and Edward T. Pollack Fine Art, a private dealer in early 20th-century American and European artists focused on printmaking.
Each year, several organizing themes seem to predominate among exhibitors, and this year it appears that portraits and self-portraits will figure prominently throughout the fair. It is said that almost no other 20th-century artist recorded his own image as often as Max Beckmann, and the works on offer among the fair’s German Expressionist dealers include a 1918 lithograph, another lithograph dated 1922, and a woodcut from the same year.
At August Laube’s stand, visitors can see an early impression of Rembrandt’s Old Bearded Man in a High Fur Cap. Among the many excellent works to be had at modest prices, C. & J. Goodfriend will offer Standard Bearer in a Landscape, 1540, an engraving by Heinrich Aldegrever, for $4,500.
Two portraits from 1928 and 1934 by Picasso of his then-model and later lover, Marie-Thérèse, will strike an ethereal note among the artist’s more playful works available from John Szoke. Picasso’s works will also be exhibited by Ian MacKenzie, who will survey the artist’s works from the 1930s-1960s. A portrait to note in MacKenzie’s booth will be a delicate lithograph of Françoise Gilot from 1946.
Two Palms will offer Chuck Close’s new anamorphic self-portrait, in which a highly polished steel cylinder anchored in the center of a maple platform creates an undistorted reflection of the indecipherable screenprint beneath it.
David Tunick will offer an intact set of Durer’s Engraved Passion, a series of 15 prints made by the artist between 1507 and 1512, which also includes an additional engraving, St. Peter and St. John.
American artists influenced by France at the close of the 19th century is a focus for dealer Pia Gallo, who will highlight 19th-century French and 19th-century American artists living in France, including Edouard Manet, Paul Signac, Camille Pissarro, Mary Cassatt and James Abbott McNeill Whistler.
The influence of the Whistler era on later American artists will be the organizing theme at Allinson who will show a group of atmospheric lithotints, among them, Martin Lewis’ Snow on the El.
Kandinsky will have a strong presence at the fair to celebrate the acclaimed show currently on view at the Guggenheim Museum. The Worthington Gallery will offer a whole wall of prints from Kandinsky’s Klänge 13.
William Weston’s stand will survey 20th century prints by David Hockney, Joan Miró, Férnand Leger, and Jan (Hans) Arp. Among the works by these artists, Weston will show a signed proof before the edition of 100 of Arp’s 1964 color woodcut Poupée.
Alan Cristea will show Howard Hodgkin’s Into the Woods, Summer, one of a
series of four of the largest carborundum etchings ever made. The series will be shown in its entirety at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in February 2010. The gallery will also exhibit a selection of prints by Anni Albers to celebrate the launch of her print catalogue raisonné to arrive in time for the Bauhaus exhibition opening Nov. 8 at the Museum of Modern Art. Cristea is the worldwide representative for the prints of The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation.
The IFPDA and its exhibiting Members will host a lively Nov. 4 reception to celebrate the opening of the 2009 fair with prestigious guests, curators, seasoned collectors and VIPs. Exhibitors will sell rare and important works on this evening. Preview tickets may be purchased online for $75 and at the door beginning at 5:00 pm. Preview tickets purchased online will include a run-of-show pass, and are nonrefundable. Ticket holders will enjoy early access to the fair and the first opportunity to acquire the newest editions by leading contemporary artists as well as blue-chip works by renowned masters.
The evening’s festivities will also include a treasure hunt sponsored by the IFPDA’s newly launched paper/ink committee, PIC. All who attend will receive a gift bag.
For a full listing of IFPDA Print Fair activities and special events, as well as a list of the organization’s members, log on to www.ifpda.org.
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ADDITIONAL LOTS OF NOTE
