printmaking

SFAI’s Printmaking program challenges students to address both the “how” and the “why” of printmaking, using processes creatively to translate conceptual ideas into print.

Whether students use centuries-old techniques or the latest digital technologies, the program explores how the old and the new can interact in ways that preserve tradition while embracing and creating new paradigms.

Guided by faculty representing diverse approaches to contemporary printmaking, students work to develop an individual artistic language. Students are asked to use the tools of printmaking at a high level of technical achievement, while also considering the history, context, and interdisciplinary possibilities of the medium. The Post-Baccalaureate curriculum facilitates this process of artistic development through small seminar classes, tutorials, critiques, and undergraduate electives.

SFAI’s Printmaking Department has close relationships with many renowned, local fine art presses including Crown Point Press, Electric Works, Teaberry Press, Urban Digital Color/Gallery 16, and Magnolia Editions. Other resources include the prestigious Achenbach Foundation for the Graphic Arts at the Legion of Honor museum, which houses 80,000 prints from the 15th century to the present.

Facilities

Post-Bac students have access to printmaking facilities on the 800 Chestnut Street campus; additionally, students work in their studios at the Graduate Center, which are open 24 hours a day.

Chestnut Street facilities include complete equipment for plate and stone lithography, all intaglio approaches, monoprint/type, screen printing, and relief; an in-department digital studio for film development for use in all photo approaches; a fully equipped exposure unit area for photo processes; darkroom facilities available through the Photography Department; an orbital plate maker and two Vandercook letter set presses; and a large, clean loft for paper preparation, critiques, and artists’ books classes.