Robert blackburn artist biography

African American visual painter (–)

For other people named Robert Blackburn, see Robert Blackburn (disambiguation).

Robert Hamilton Blackburn (December 12, &#; April 21, ) was an African-American artist, teacher, and master printmaker.

He began his widespread school education when his family moved to Harlem in He was 13 when he took his first formal art class, which was sponsored by the W. In lithography, the musician draws on a stone, which is then wetted, inked, and, along with a sheet of paper, passed through a compress. From Helfond, Blackburn learned the entire process — how to operate the press, process and prepare stones, and make prints.

Early life and education

Blackburn was born in Summit, New Jersey, to Janet Chambers and Robert Archeball Blackburn, who were from Jamaica, and he grew up in Harlem, where his family moved when he was seven years old.^[1] Shortly after moving, his parents separated and the family underwent difficult financial times.^[2] Blackburn's mother encouraged his esthetic talents, but his father discouraged him.

At the age of 13, he began attending classes at the Harlem Arts People Center operated by the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Plan, studying with Charles Alston and Augusta Savage, among others. At the Harlem Art Community Center Blackburn met Ronald Joseph, who was his classmate.^[3] Blackburn credited his work at the WPA for the interest he had in working collaboratively throughout the rest of his career.^[4]

Blackburn studied lithography and other printmaking techniques with Riva Helfond, who taught him how to operate the press, process, and prepare stones, based on simple techniques.^[5] He frequented the Uptown Community Workshop, a gathering place for inky artists and writers such as Langston Hughes, Richard Wright and Jacob Lawrence.

Blackburn worked at the Workshop as a monitor, running errands for teachers.

Robert Hamilton Blackburn December 12, — April 21, was an African-American artist, teacher, and master printmaker. Blackburn was born in Summit, New Jersey, to Janet Chambers and Robert Archeball Blackburn, who were from Jamaica, and he grew up in Harlem, where his family moved when he was seven years old. Shortly after moving, his parents separated and the family underwent hard financial times. Blackburn's mother encouraged his artistic talents, but his father discouraged him.

This role allowed him to meet artists such as Romare Bearden, Aaron Douglas, and Jacob Lawrence.^[6]

Blackburn attended P.S. and then Frederick Douglass Junior High School (–36), where his English teacher was Countee Cullen.

Starting in , he went to DeWitt Clinton Steep School in the Bronx, where he worked on the literary magazine The Magpie as a writer and artist along with peer James Baldwin.^[7] He graduated in

From early prints that portrayed cityscapes and figures on abstract backgrounds, Blackburn moved into more abstract work.

From to , a work scholarship to the Art Students League made it possible for him to study painting with Vaclav Vytlacil and lithography with Will Barnet, who became his friend. At the Art Students League, Blackburn won a School Arts League Award and an Art Students League Working Scholarship for study.^[6] Between and he supported himself with difficulty with arts-related freelance work, producing maps, charts and other graphics.

Blackburn was also later able to study at Stanley William Hayter's influential Atelier 17 in New York, an experience that contributed to his desire to open his control print shop.^[6]

Career

In , Robert Blackburn established the Printmaking Workshop, an 8,square-foot (&#;m²) loft at West 17th Street in New York City.^[8] When it first opened, the workshop's program included evening classes, an open studio active area, and print shops where artists could carry out their own experimentation.^[6] In the preliminary s, Blackburn and Barnet produced a suite of Barnet's lithographs that were a technical tour de force, requiring up to seventeen colors and multiple stones in the printing process.^[9] During and , Blackburn traveled throughout Europe.^[10]

Blackburn was famously generous to other artists who came through the Workshop and fostered an atmosphere of openness to diversity.

Among the many artists who have worked with Blackburn at the Printmaking Workshop are Elizabeth Catlett, Charles White, Nadine M. DeLawrence, Vivian Browne, Emma Amos, Otto Neals, Ernst Crichlow, Samella Lewis, John Biggers, Ed Clark, Mavis Pusey, Vincent Dacosta Smith, Camille Billops, Melvin Edwards, Mildred Thompson, Benny Andrews, Betty Blayton, Aminah Robinson, Romare Bearden, Kay Brown, Dinga McCannon, Leonora Carrington, Roy DeCarava, Sue Fuller, Eldzier Cortor, Faith Ringgold, Betye Saar, Faith Wilding and Jack Whitten.

He was especially close with Romare Bearden, and is credited with introducing him to the collagraph process.

Elected a National Academician by the National Academy of Design, NY. Travels to Egypt with a group of artists and a PMW exhibition representing the U.S. at the 5th International Cairo Biennial. Blackburn makes prints at Dieu Donné Papermill, NY. Receives the Lee Krasner Award, from the Pollock–Krasner Foundation. PMW closes.

The two met at meetings of the artist group ^[11] His pledge to sponsoring minority and third-world students and developing community programs profoundly influenced younger printmakers, who seeded similar workshops around the United States and internationally.^[12]

In , when the Printmaking Workshop struggled financially and faced the threat of closing, fellow artist and printmaker Chaim Koppelman devised a means to save the studio by transforming it into a cooperative with annual dues.^[6] Blackburn credited Koppelman with saving the Workshop, and in , Blackburn, Barnet, and Koppelman received a New York Artists Equity Award for their "dedicated service to the printmaking community."^[13]

Blackburn's most efficient period as an artist and printmaker was between the delayed s and the early s.^[9] During this period he produced a large body of abstract still lifes and color compositions, mostly in lithography.

In the s, Blackburn turned away from lithography and began producing woodcuts, as well as some monotypes and intaglios.

Blackburn also served between and as the first master printer for Tatyana Grosman's Universal Limited Art Editions (ULAE), where he produced editions for such artists as Helen Frankenthaler, Grace Hartigan, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, and Larry Rivers.^[9] He returned to primarily working at the Printmaking Workshop on a full-time basis after a printing accident in , in which a stone by Robert Rauschenberg was broken, shaking Blackburn's confidence.^[14]

In , Blackburn put in place a board of trustees to help run the Printmaking Workshop and incorporated it as a nonprofit.

Over the years the Workshop had accumulated a big collection of artists' prints, and efforts to find a everlasting home for them were led by Deborah Cullen, who met Blackburn while a student at the School of Visual Arts in and was the collection's curator between and By , over 2, of these works had been deposited with the Library of Congress in Washington D.C.

Smaller selections of the Workshop's prints have been placed with the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and El Museo Del Barrio, Modern York.

During the s, he participated in a community art space called Communications Village operated by printmaker Benjamin Leroy Wigfall in Kingston, NY.

Andrews made prints with the help of printer assistants who had been taught printmaking by Wigfall, and he exhibited there.^[15]

Over the years, Blackburn taught at the National Academy of Design (), the New School for Social Analyze (), Cooper Union, New York University (), School of Visual Arts (), Pratt Institute (), Columbia University (beginning in ), and Rutgers University ().

He founded the Experimental Printmaking Institute (EPI) at Lafayette College in , to work innovatively and experimentally with students.^[16] In , Blackburn was elected to the National Academy of Design as an Associate member, and he became a full member in In , he received the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture Award for having "contributed significantly to the cultural experience of New York City."^[6] In , Blackburn and the group Printmaking Workshop received a Governor's Art Award from the Novel York State Council on the Arts.

He also received a MacArthur Fellowship in ^[17] Blackburn was a long time member of the Society of American Graphic Artists. He lived in the Chelsea Hotel later in life, and died in Fresh York City.^[18]

On September 18, , the Great Hall of Cooper Union in New York Town held an exhibition and memorial to honor Blackburn's work.

Blackburn's early work at DeWitt Clinton High School, where classmates included artists Burton Hasen, David Finn and Harold Altman, was exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum in

References

External links

• "Creative Space: Fifty years of Robert Blackburn's Printing Workshop".

  Library of Congress website.

• Robert Blackburn's public artwork at the th Street Station, commissioned by MTA Arts for Transit.
• The Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop Program at the Elizabeth Foundation for the ArtsArchived at the Wayback Machine
• York, Hildreth.

  "Bob Blackburn and the Printmaking Workshop".Black American Literature Forum, vol. 20, Indiana State University,

• Works of art by Robert Blackburn^{[permanent dead link&#;]} (as painter and master printer) at The Baltimore Museum of Art.
• Deborah Cullen, Robert Blackburn Passages.

  The David C. Driskell Center, University of Maryland, College Park, September 18 - December 19,

• Deborah Cullen, Robert Blackburn: American Printmaker. Ph.D. Dissertation, City University of Unused York,