Highlights of the Peter Blum Edition Archive December 22, 2011–February 19, 2012
Eric Fischl, Year of the Drowned Dog, 1983, sugar-lift aquatint and soft-ground etching with scraping, drypoint, and roulette in colors on wove paper, edition III/X, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Peter Blum Edition Archive, 1980–1994, Museum purchase funded by the Alice Pratt Brown Museum Fund. © Eric Fischl
Sherrie Levine, After Mondrian, from Meltdown, 1989, woodblock print in colors,
the MFAH, Peter Blum Edition Archive, 1980–1994, museum purchase
with funds provided by the Alice Pratt Brown Museum Fund.
Brice Marden, 13, from Etchings to Rexroth, 1986, sugar-life aquatint and etching,
the MFAH, Peter Blum Edition Archive, 1980–1994, museum purchase with funds
provided by the Alice Pratt Brown Museum Fund.
Alex Katz, Kriti, Vincent, from A Tremor in the Morning, 1987, woodcut,
the MFAH, Peter Blum Edition Archive, 1980–1994, museum purchase
with funds provided by the Alice Pratt Brown Museum Fund.
The Peter Blum Edition Archive, a landmark MFAH acquisition, is the inspiration for this exhibition. The 1996 acquisition was spearheaded by MFAH curator Barry Walker, who retired in August 2011. Walker oversaw the museum’s purchase of all the prints and books that Blum—a print publisher who collaborated with leading contemporary European and American artists—had released from 1981 through 1994. The collection contains 44 finished projects by 23 artists, and Blum enriched it by donating all the related preparatory materials, providing a complete record of many of the projects.
A major coup of Walker’s tenure, the collection was originally exhibited at the MFAH in 2006 in Singular Multiples: The Peter Blum Edition Archive, 1980–1994. The three-segment installation occupied more than 35,000 square feet in the Law Building. Even though Singular Multiples was the largest museum exhibition of late-20th-century graphic arts ever mounted, the show included only 400 of the 1,500 objects in the collection. The exhibition catalogue documents the entire archive. This Highlights exhibition revisits the presentation in a more intimate selection of prints and preparatory materials, by artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Enzo Cucchi, Alex Katz, Brice Marden, and James Turrell.
► Publications
The exhibition catalogue and related publications are available through the MFA Shop (713.639.7360) and the Museum’s Hirsch Library (713.639.7325).
This exhibition is organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.