blackness in relief

BY JORDANA MOORE SAGGESE

As a historian of modern and contemporary American art, with a special interest in critical expressions of Blackness, am keenly aware of the lack of scholarly attention given to artists of African descent. However, most art historians (including myself at one point) have only a passing knowledge of the medium of printmaking –excluding perhaps early modern engagements with etching or the impacts of letterpress and lithography on the dissemination of important texts and popular images in the decades surrounding the first industrial revolution. It was only when I moved to the University of Maryland, and most importantly, into the realm of The David C. Driskell Center when my true understanding of the challenges and the promises of the printmaking medium–and its intrinsic connections to Black innovation–began.

Inspired by the collections of the David C. Driskell Center and the legacies of Washington DC area printmakers–most of whom existed in the orbit of Professor Driskell–I organized my fall 2022 seminar for the graduate students in the Department of Art History and Archaeology around the history of Black printmaking. Entitled “Blackness in Relief,” our inquiry centered on a primary question: What would it mean to tell a history of printmaking from a Black perspective? While we have many histories of printmaking in the modern American context (e.g., the densely- collaged silkscreen prints of Robert Rauschenberg), we know much less about the workshops–many established by Black artists–who made this work possible. In seminar meetings with my students, I frequently witnessed their surprise in hearing for the first time about the Experimental Print Workshop, founded in New York City by Robert Blackburn in 1947 or about the innovations of James L. Wells, a faculty member in the Department of Art at Howard University who taught the first universitylevel course in the linocut medium in the United States. Together we studied the ecosystems of the Works Progress Administration workshops in Philadelphia and of Howard University, which functioned as centers of gravity for so many Black printmakers. And we realized early on that any study of printmaking must necessarily include a deep consideration of the materials and techniques at play.

For the final project in the course, I asked students to propose an exhibition that would demonstrate their knowledge of the medium and its history, as well as draw primarily from the permanent collection of the David C. Driskell Center. Much to their discomfort, I presented no other specific agenda; my aim was instead to provide the space for these students to develop their own lines of inquiry. The resulting exhibition RINGGOLD | SAAR:

Meeting on the Matrix which debuted only weeks after the end of our semester together, perfectly demonstrates their engagement of the complexity of the printmaking medium. Using the “matrix” as a conceptual device, rather than just as a formal component of printmaking, was their solution to addressing the many points of intersection that all printmakers must navigate–between the image and its surface, between the artist and the printmaker, between public-facing work and a privatized art world. In the case of the artists Faith Ringgold and Betye Saar, the matrix framework allows us to think about these artists intersectionally–as Black women, as mothers, as artists working across media, and as political activists. As you explore the exhibition, I hope that you are inspired to look more closely at these prints and to consider how the subjects and themes on display may intersect with your own experiences.