COLLABORATION 2020: Ann Chernow and James Reed

COLLABORATION 2020

Ann

Chernow and James Reed

The representations of the images provided by Ann Chernow are the result of professional photographing of the original prints. These representations are true to color and value but are not a representation of size.

Front cover: Ann Chernow, PAGE OF HEADS (detail), Lithograph

COLLABORATION 2020

March 29 through

August 23, 2020

Mathews Park

299 West Ave

Norwalk, CT 06850

contemprints.org

Ann Chernow and James Reed

Collaboration 2020 addresses the alchemy of printmaking as it relates to the prints of Pablo Picasso. Chernow and Reed, an artist and a printmaker respectively, combined their knowledge and experience with an unusual goal in mind. They chose not to replicate Picasso’s imagery but instead, to duplicate his undocumented printmaking techniques. Together they conducted deep research and experimentation, unearthing Picasso’s lost methods over the course of this project. “At first, with several prints, it was just, ‘Let’s try this…It was only after a number of editions were completed that we realized a goal” (James Reed, 2007). As Ann and James continued to create, each print required more elaborate discovery methodologies since the notes from Picasso’s master printer, Fernand Mourlot, were incomplete, and many of Picasso’s materials were not identified or no longer commercially available.

Ann and James’s efforts resulted in fifty-three prints that sit squarely within Chernow’s oeuvre using Picasso’s ingenious approach to printmaking, only possible as a result of Reed’s extensive knowledge and skill. “We have worked on this project for five demanding, educational, fun and very satisfying years.” Chernow said.

Kimberly Henrikson Executive Director for The Center for Contemporary Printmaking

About the Artist

ANN CHERNOW was born and brought up in New York, and experienced much of the New York art world of the 1950s and l960s. She has since created a personal, defining body of work, a genre that is recognized as unique: moments of suspended reality based on material from aspects of American movies from the l930s and l940s, but totally reinvented in her own vocabulary. Chernow’s work often includes original wiriting as part of the images.

Chernow divides her time between New York City and her studio in Westport, Connecticut. She co-stars in a 2012 film by Manny Kirchheimer: “Art is...the Permanent Revolution,” and in Doug Tirola’s WAC documentary “13 Women.” A documentary, “A Moment in Time” about Chernow’s life and work is being completed by filmmaker Leah Price.

2006

Reduction linoleum cut

12” x 9”

About the Printer

JAMES REED has spent his entire life immersed in the world of prints. He is an artist, Master Printer, professor, and collector/curator whose Bridgeport printmaking studio, Milestone Graphics, has earned a reputation as an important institution for contemporary artists in Connecticut. James has taught drawing, color theory, and printmaking as a university Adjunct Professor for over thirty years. He studied at the University of Missouri, Kansas City (B.A.), San Francisco State University (M.A.), Tamarind Institute, and the University of New Mexico. He has also participated in the establishment and initial start up of numerous print facilities, including his involvement as part of the founding staff at the Center for Contemporary Printmaking in Norwalk, Connecticut.

As an artist, Reed’s own work appears in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York Public Library, the National Gallery, and the Rare Books and Special Collections of the Allen Library at the University of Washington. The work produced in collaboration with other artists is housed in museums and public collections around the world. Among other accolades and accomplishments, during his career, Reed has received a Ford Foundation Fellowship and a Rockefeller Research Grant, and his work and life have been archived in the Smithsonian Libraries and listed in Who’s Who in American Art. Most recently, he donated his entire personal collection of prints to the Fairfield University Art Museum in support of education; over 1500 antique and contemporary prints will be used specifically for a student study/access collection.

This project started by looking at Picasso’s prints. The one that started it was Picasso’s White Bust on Black from 1949. The next print looked into was Picasso’s Seated Woman and Sleeping Woman from 1947. The work description said one thing, but the process wasn’t accurate. This one took a lot of James’s work to figure out. In the Bloch book it was incorrect and they left out all sorts of steps. The printer never told his secrets.

In the past, printers used very toxic materials but to replicate the process we had to use less toxic ones and still have it look the same.

— Ann Chernow

Question: How has working with Ann Chernow affected your collaborative printmaking career?

Answer: “ I’m not sure how this project has influenced my collaborative skills. She and I have produced over 300 editions together and the Picasso Project falls somewhere in the middle. Every project feeds every new project, so it’s an ongoing, organic process. ”

Question: As the master printer, you have additional insight about the underlying processes required to realize these projects. Can you speak to the collaborative partnership that is required between artist and printmaker?

Answer: “ For successful collaboration there has to be a mutual letting go based on trust, trust based on many different levels. ”

Question: Based on your experience collaborating with artists over the years, how does lithography lend itself to Ann’s creative process?

Answer: “ Ann is a “draw”-er and lithography is well suited to artists who draw. (Not limited but well suited). ”

— James Reed