Established in 2022 as a dedicated research space at RBPMW, the Blackburn Study Center (BSC) directly extends the RBPMW’s civic-minded and art-historical legacies. The BSC stewards the Robert Blackburn Print Collection and Archives, preserving and cataloging nearly 80 years of printmaking history; expanding the understanding and awareness of RBPMW’s seminal global, social, cultural and historical impact. The collection consists of printed and digital research material, ephemera, and artwork.
By formally devoting care, attention, and promotion to these world-class archives, the BSC creates new creative relationships as well as re-establishing past ones, within and beyond its walls throughout the world. Through free educational programming, including curated exhibitions, scholarly publications, guided tours and events, the Blackburn Study Center makes its distinguished collection accessible to the broader public.
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"The thing that sticks with me from my all-too-brief visit—which mainly served to make me realize that I’d only really understand it if I got ink on my hands and started printing there myself—was how everyone (even though the people I talked to are too young to have known him in person) still speaks of Blackburn as if he’d just been there the other day, as if his spirit were still wandering the shop, looking around to observe what everyone is doing and giving advice where needed. "
The Art of Cooperation A Review of the “Press & Pull” Art Exhibit at the James Gallery in New York City by Bernard E. Harcourt "One of the ways to confront these exclusions and to protect ourselves in these times is precisely to form cooperatives, collaborations, collectivities that promote solidarity and create economic sustainability. The practices that built the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop are precisely what we need to draw on today to create more cooperation in society, to govern ourselves democratically, to set our own rules and standards, to sustain ourselves economically. "
“As a pioneer of lithography in the United States, Robert Blackburn arguably carved out a pathway for the Pop Art Movement to flourish. He imagined his printshop as a reincarnation of the spaces that made his creative life possible, offering his community of devoted artists and budding practitioners an ecosystem where magnetic encounters of knowledge exchange and cooperation are evident on paper.”
The Only Thing That Lasts: An Oral History of Robert Blackburn’s Printmaking Workshop is an educational platform supported by the Dedalus Foundation.
Interviews were filmed from November 1 - 3, 2023 by Camille Crain Drummond at the Printmaking Workshop on the second floor of the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts at 323 West 39th Street, New York City, funded by Hauser & Wirth Institute.
For information about accessing the full oral histories please contact rbpmw@efanyc.org or essye@efanyc.org.
Viscosity collagraph, Dimensions: Paper size: 22 x15 image size: 13 x 9.25 inches; Edition Variable: 10. Printed by Michael Kelly Williams, Ethan Tate and Mika Nida, with Kathy Caraccio and John Andrews.
