Thirty-Five Years at Crown Point Press: Making Prints, Doing Art, (Published in Association with the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco)

If you are familiar with Crown Point Press, this book offers some of the printmaking highlights over the past 35 years. My favorite section is on the 1980's where CPP used skilled japanese printmakers to create some of the most challenging woodblock prints I have ever seen. The lucky artists that were invited to publish works during this time period include: Chuck Close, Wayne Thiebaud, and William t. Wiley.

Crown Point Press is one of the leading American printer/publishers of original fine prints, emphasizing intaglio (etching) techniques (although at various periods it has also sponsored woodblock projects). This book is a celebration of 35 years (as of 1997) of printing at Crown Point, and consists of three essays, plus the catalogue of the exhibition that followed the acquisition of the Crown Point archive by the Fine Art Museums of San Francisco.The first essay is a history of Crown Point Press, and particularly of the unique vision and direction given to the Press by its founder and first printer, Kathan Brown. Although occasionally tedious (as when it lapses into lists of the artists who worked at the Press during a particular period), this essay provides interesting discussions of Brown's evolving philosophy, her interactions with artists belonging to various art movements, the different goals of the artists, and so on. You also get a small glipse into the economics of print publishing.The second and third essays were what I found most interesting. Karin Breuer shows how the working proofs contained in the Press's archive document the artist at work, and the very different working methods that can be effective for different artists. Steven Nash discusses the interrelationships between an artist's work in printmaking and his or her work in other media.Two-thirds of the book is the exhibition catalogue, which shows the truly amazing breadth and quality of the work done at Crown Point over the years. Although Brown has had a particular affinity for Minimalist and Conceptual art, she has invited interesting artists across a wide spectrum of "isms" to work at the Press, and the list of participating artists reads like a "who's who" of American art in the second half of the 20th Century. Particularly significant artists at Crown Point have included Richard Diebenkorn, John Cage, Wayne Thiebaud and Sol LeWitt, all of whom are well represented in the catalogue.This is certainly not a "how to" book, and it is probably still too soon to be able to look back and really say "yes, this artist or movement was significant," or "this Press made a difference in American art," or even "this is the lasting contribution made by the post-WWII resurgence in printmaking." This book provides an important record, however, of 35 years at one of the most important American printer/publishers, and as such makes it easier to think about these questions and begin to glimpse answers.