2D: Printmaking

Among the more active support groups of the Cleveland Museum of Art is the Print Club of Cleveland, founded in 1919, the year of the art museum’s first May Show. From the beginning, the organization has had two purposes: to enhance the art museum’s print collection (as galleries dedicated to fine prints were part of the original blueprint); and to stimulate greater interest in prints and printmaking processes. The Print Club has made many important gifts to the CMA collection, often by CIA-affiliated artists.

During the Great Depression, the production and sale of fine prints helped both collectors and artists by making affordable artworks available in small editions. That difficult decade of the 1930s was also eased by the creative energies of Kálmán Kubinyi ’29, an expert in the various processes involved in different types of printmaking. This long history has proved a solid foundation for Cleveland’s continuing interest in prints today, among both artists and collectors.

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