Contemporary printmaking in Texas is a fascinating field with just about as many practitioners and many variations as one can imagine. The abundance of Texas printmakers and the vibrancy of this medium stand out on a national scale comparable with the state’s size. This popularity and reputation has everything to do with the changing role of the print in contemporary art and culture. This exhibition demonstrates how the artists and collecting institutions themselves are defying traditional hierarchies that previously defined printmaking as a lesser art media.
 
For example the El Paso Museum of Art has over the years paid close attention to the art of printmaking and in addition to building a strong collection of prints by Texas artists from the Depression era through the Second World War has also gathered numerous prints by contemporary Texan artists. With this exhibition the El Paso Museum of Art celebrates this note-worthy collection.
 
The woodcuts, etchings, aquatints, lithographs, linocuts, serigraphs, and mono-prints included here should be seen as a sampling of the printmaking abundance that can be found throughout the Lone Star state. Artists such as David Bates, Luis Jimenez, Donald Judd and James Surls are only four of the many Texas artists for whom printmaking has become an essential part of their artistic practice.
 
Image Credit:
David Bates
Full Moon, 1992
Mixed media & woodcut, 45 1/4 x 38 1/4”
Purchase with funds of anonymous donors
2005.13