NSCAD University’s Anna Leonowens Gallery has been awarded a prestigious New Chapter Grant from the Canada Council of the Arts to re-establish and extend the legacy of the NSCAD Lithography workshop.
Andy Fillmore, the Member of Parliament for Halifax, made the announcement at the Starfish Student Art Award on Thursday, April 20.
With $285,000 in funding, the gallery will welcome eight high-profile and diverse Canadian artists to NSCAD to work with Tamarind-certified Master Printer Jill Graham as part of “NSCAD Lithography Workshop: Contemporary Editions.” As part of the production of this limited edition-portfolio, the gallery along with the NSCAD Printmaking Department will partake in a cultural exchange in Cape Dorset at Kinngait Studios.
This is one of the 200 exceptional projects funded through the Canada Council for the Arts’ New Chapter initiative. With this $35M initiative, the Council supports the creation and sharing of the arts in communities across Canada.”
The NSCAD Lithography Workshop was a contemporary printmaking venture for visiting artists at NSCAD from 1969 through to 1980. Some of the artists who participated during those years included Dan Graham, John Baldessari, Michael Snow, Joyce Wieland, Guido Molinari, Vito Acconci, Sol LeWitt, Emmett Williams, David Askevold, Claus Oldenburg, Carol Conde, and Eric Fischl among others.
The workshop flourished under the direction of first Jack Lemon and then Gerald Ferguson and with master printers Robert Rogers and Wallace Brannen.
All of the hand-pulled editions created were executed in average runs of 50 print impressions each and placed for sale on the market as per terms established with the artists. NSCAD currently holds this specialized collection of prints as a subset of the Permanent Collection.