Tamarind Institute is a

lithography Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...

workshop created in 1970 as a division of the

University of New Mexico The University of New Mexico (UNM; es, Universidad de Nuevo México) is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Founded in 1889, it is the state's flagship academic institution and the largest by enrollment, with over 25,400 ...

Albuquerque Albuquerque ( ; ), ; kee, Arawageeki; tow, Vakêêke; zun, Alo:ke:k'ya; apj, Gołgéeki'yé. abbreviated ABQ, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Mexico. Its nicknames, The Duke City and Burque, both reference its founding in ...

, NM, United States. It began as Tamarind Lithography Workshop, a California non-profit corporation founded by

June Wayne June Claire Wayne (March 7, 1918 – August 23, 2011) was an American painter, printmaker, tapestry innovator, educator, and activist. She founded Tamarind Lithography Workshop (1960–1970), a then California-based nonprofit print shop dedicated ...

on Tamarind Avenue in Los Angeles in 1960. Both the current Institute and the original Lithography Workshop are referred to informally as "Tamarind."

Origin and goals

Tamarind was founded in the absence of an American print shop dedicated to serving artists, and during a period when American artists tended to reject lithography and collaborative printing in favor of the more "direct...immediate" possibilities of

abstract expressionist Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...

painting. Faced with a paucity of opportunities on all fronts and a medium which seemed on the verge of extinction, Wayne sought to create more than just a studio: Tamarind Institute's website lists the following goals, developed by founding director June Wayne with associate director

Clinton Adams Clinton Adams (December 11, 1918 – May 13, 2002) was an American artist and art historian. He was known for his contributions to the field of lithography. Biography Adams was born in Glendale, California. He worked in the art department ...

and technical director

Garo Antreasian Garo Zareh Antreasian (1922 – 2018) was an American printmaker and educator. He was one of the co-founders of the Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles, California. Biography Antreasian was born on February 16, 1922, in Indianapolis, I ...

in 1960: * To create a pool of master artisan-printers in the United States by training apprentices; * To develop a group of American artists of diverse styles into masters of this medium; * To habituate each artist and artisan to intimate collaboration so that each becomes responsive and stimulating to the other in the work situation encouraging both to experiment widely and extend the expressive potential of the medium; * To stimulate new markets for the lithograph; * To plan a format to guide the artisan in earning his living outside of subsidy or total dependence on the artist's pocket; * To restore the prestige of lithography by actually creating a collection of extraordinary prints.

Impact

Tamarind can be credited with single-handedly reviving the medium of lithography in the US, both insofar as they made the medium "respectable" and viable and also in that their dedicated research led to technical and economic breakthroughs with a visible impact on lithography in particular and printmaking in general; e.g., lightfast inks, durable and consistent printmaking paper, precise registration systems, aluminum plate printing, and lightweight, large diameter rollers are but a few important aspects of printmaking which either originated at or were refined by Tamarind. The workshop also established several now-customary procedures for editioned prints, such as precisely recording and documenting every edition, and affixing both a workshop chop and a printer's chop to each proof or impression in recognition of the printer's important role.

Artists

Below is a partial list of some of the many artists who have created editions at Tamarind: *

Rodolfo Abularach Rodolfo Abularach (January 7, 1933 – August 30, 2020) was a Guatemalan painter and printmaker of Palestinian descent. Biography He was born in Guatemala City. His work focuses mainly on the human eye. He attended the Escuela Nacional de Artes P ...

Kinji Akagawa Kinji Akagawa (born 1940, Tokyo, Japan) is an American sculptor, printmaker, and arts educator best known for sculptural constructions that also serve a practical function. A pioneer in the public art movement, Akagawa has throughout his caree ...

Anni Albers Anni Albers (born Annelise Elsa Frieda Fleischmann; June 12, 1899 – May 9, 1994) was a German textile artist and printmaker credited with blurring the lines between traditional craft and art. Early life and education Anni Albers was born Ann ...

Josef Albers Josef Albers (; ; March 19, 1888March 25, 1976) was a German-born artist and educator. The first living artist to be given a solo show at MoMA and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, he taught at the Bauhaus and Black Mountain College, ...

Polly Apfelbaum Polly E. Apfelbaum (born Abington, Pennsylvania 1955) is an American contemporary visual artist, who is primarily known for her colorful drawings, sculptures, and fabric floor pieces, which she refers to as "fallen paintings".Ruth Asawa Ruth Aiko Asawa (January 24, 1926 – August 5, 2013) was an American modernist sculptor. Her work is featured in collections at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.< ...

Sandow Birk Sandow Birk (born 1962 in Detroit) is an American visual artist from Los Angeles whose work deals mainly with contemporary American culture. Seven books have been published on his works and he has made two films. With an emphasis on social issue ...

* Jack Boynton *

Hans Burkhardt Hans Gustav Burkhardt (December 20, 1904 – April 22, 1994) was a Swiss-American abstract expressionist artist. Life and work Burkhardt was born in the industrial quarter of Basel, Switzerland. When he was three his father abandoned the famil ...

Squeak Carnwath Squeak Carnwath (born 1947 in Abington, Pennsylvania) is a contemporary American painter and arts educator. She is a Professor Emerita of Art at University of California, Berkeley. Background Carnwath has explained "Squeak" as "a childhood name ...

Willie Cole Willie Cole (born 1955 in Somerville, New Jersey) is a contemporary American sculptor, printer, and conceptual and visual artist. His work uses contexts of postmodern eclecticism, and combines references and appropriation from African and Afr ...

José Luis Cuevas José Luis Cuevas (February 26, 1934 – July 3, 2017) was a Mexican artist, he often worked as a painter, writer, draftsman, engraver, illustrator, and printmaker. Cuevas was one of the first to challenge the then dominant Mexican muralism ...

Amy Cutler Amy Cutler (born 1974) is an American contemporary artist. Cutler received her BFA degree from Cooper Union, The Cooper Union School of Art, New York, New York, in 1997. Her work has been featured in major surveys of contemporary art, most import ...

Elaine de Kooning Elaine Marie Catherine de Kooning (, née Fried; March 12, 1918 – February 1, 1989) was an Abstract Expressionist and Figurative Expressionist painter in the post-World War II era. She wrote extensively on the art of the period and was an edito ...

Roy De Forest Roy De Forest (11 February 1930 – 18 May 2007) was an American Painting, painter, Sculpture, sculptor, and teacher. He was involved in both the Funk art and Nut art movements in the Bay Area of California. De Forest's art is known for its quirk ...

Dorothy Dehner Dorothy Dehner (1901–1994) was an American painter and sculptor. Early life Dorothy Dehner was born on December 23, 1901, in Cleveland, Ohio. Her father was a pharmacist and her mother was a passionate suffragette. When Dehner was ten years o ...

Richard Diebenkorn Richard Diebenkorn (April 22, 1922 – March 30, 1993) was an American painter and printmaker. His early work is associated with abstract expressionism and the Bay Area Figurative Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. In the late 1960s he bega ...

Lesley Dill Lesley Dill (born 1950) is an American contemporary artist. Her work, using a wide variety of media including sculpture, print, performance art, music, and others, explores the power of language and the mystical nature of the psyche. Dill curre ...

Jim Dine Jim Dine (born June 16, 1935 in Cincinnati, Ohio) is an American artist whose œuvre extends over sixty years. Dine’s work includes painting, drawing, printmaking (in many forms including lithographs, etchings, gravure, intaglio, woodcuts, l ...

Burhan Doğançay Burhan C. Doğançay (11 September 1929 – 16 January 2013) was a Turkish-American artist. Doğançay is best known for tracking walls in various cities across the world for half a century, integrating them in his artistic work. Biography ...

Walton Ford Walton Ford (born 1960 in Larchmont, New York) is an American artist who makes paintings and prints in the style of naturalist illustrations, often depicting extinct species. Each of his paintings is a meticulous, realistic study in flora and fa ...

Sam Francis Samuel Lewis Francis (June 25, 1923 – November 4, 1994) was an American painter and printmaker. Early life Sam Francis was born in San Mateo, California,

Tina Fuentes Tina Fuentes may refer to: * Tina Fuentes (artist) (born 1949), American artist * Tina Fuentes (synchronized swimmer) (1984–2018), Spanish synchronized swimmer {{hndis ...

Sonia Gechtoff Sonia Gechtoff (September 25, 1926 – February 1, 2018) was an American abstract expressionist painter. Her primary medium was painting but she also created drawings and prints. Early life and education Sonia Gechtoff was born in Philadelphia t ...

Gego Gertrud Louise Goldschmidt (1 August 1912 – 17 September 1994), known as Gego, was a modern Venezuelan visual artist. Gego is perhaps best known for her geometric and kinetic sculptures made in the 1960s and 1970s, which she described as "dra ...

Samia Halaby Samia A. Halaby (born 1936, in Jerusalem) is a Palestinian artist, activist, and scholar living and working in New York. Halaby is recognized as a pioneer of abstract painting. Since beginning her artistic career in the late 1950s, she has exhibit ...

Frederick Hammersley Frederick Hammersley (January 5, 1919 – May 31, 2009) was an American abstract painter. His participation in the 1959 '' Four Abstract Classicists'' exhibit secured his place in art history. Early years Frederick Hammersley was born in Salt ...

* Margo Humphrey * James Kelly *

William Kentridge William Kentridge (born 28 April 1955) is a South African artist best known for his prints, drawings, and animated films, especially noted for a sequence of hand-drawn animated films he produced during the 1990s. The latter are constructed by ...

Joyce Kozloff Joyce Kozloff (born 1942) is an American artist whose politically engaged work has been based on cartography since the early 1990s. Kozloff was one of the original members of the Pattern and Decoration movement and was an early artist in the 1970 ...

Robert Kushner Robert Kushner(; born 1949, Pasadena, CA) is an American contemporary painter who is known especially for his involvement in Pattern and Decoration. He has been called "a founder" of that artistic movement. In addition to painting, Kushner creates ...

Hung Liu Hung Liu (劉虹) (17 February 1948 – 7 August 2021) was a Chinese Americans, Chinese-born American contemporary artist. She was predominantly a painter, but also worked with mixed-media and site-specific installation and was also one of the f ...

* Nicola López * Eleanore Mikus *

Louise Nevelson Louise Nevelson (September 23, 1899 – April 17, 1988) was an American sculptor known for her monumental, monochromatic, wooden wall pieces and outdoor sculptures. Born in the Poltava Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Kyiv Oblast, ...

Joseph Raffael Joseph Raffael (born February 22, 1933 in Brooklyn, NY - July 12, 2021 Cagnes-sur-Mer) was an American contemporary realist painter. His paintings, primarily watercolors, are almost all presented on a very large scale. Early life Raffael was ...

Mel Ramos Melvin John Ramos (July 24, 1935 – October 14, 2018) was an American figurative painter, specializing most often in paintings of female nudes, whose work incorporates elements of realist and abstract art. Born in Sacramento, California, to ...

* Willy Bo Richardson *

Ed Ruscha Edward Joseph Ruscha IV (, ''roo-SHAY''; born December 16, 1937) is an American artist associated with the pop art movement. He has worked in the media of painting, printmaking, drawing, photography and film. He is also noted for creating severa ...

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (born 1940) is a Native American visual artist and curator. She is an enrolled member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and is also of Métis and Shoshone descent. She is also an art educator, art advocate ...

Kiki Smith Kiki Smith (born January 18, 1954) is a West German-born American artist whose work has addressed the themes of sex, birth and regeneration. Her figurative work of the late 1980s and early 1990s confronted subjects such as AIDS and gender, whil ...

* Robert Stackhouse *

Hedda Sterne Hedda Sterne (August 4, 1910 – April 8, 2011) was a Romanian-born American artist who was an active member of the New York School of painters. Her work is often associated with Abstract Expressionism and Surrealism.Sterne, Hedda, Sarah L Eckh ...

Donald Sultan Donald K. Sultan (born 1951) is an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker, particularly well-known for large-scale still life paintings and the use of industrial materials such as tar, enamel, spackle and vinyl tiles. He has been exhibiting ...

Master printers

One of the principal goals of the Tamarind Institute is the training of printers. Over the years, the training of these professionals has evolved since its creation in 1960. What began as an eight-week basic training course eventually developed into a two-year program. There are five levels in the program: student printer, candidate printer, assistant printer, senior printer, and master printer. There have been over 100 Master Program certificates awarded by the Tamarind Institute. The first master printer graduate from Tamarind was

Irwin Hollander Irwin Hollander (1927–2018) was an American artist and master printmaker, based in New York City. He helped revive lithography as a fine art around the 1960s. He had a printing studio called Hollander’s Workshop. Biography Born 30 November ...

of Hollander's Workshop in New York City. Judith Solodkin was the first woman to complete the program. Joe Funk was the first Tamarind fellow, serving between 1960 to 1961. From 1972 to 1973, Chen Lok Lee received a fellowship from the

Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a US$25,000 gift from Edsel Ford. By 1947, after the death ...

, funded in part by the

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...

, to study at Tamarind. Lee went on to found Mantegna Press II, with

Richard Callner Richard Callner (May 18, 1927 – August 31, 2007) was a 20th-century American painter. His early work was related to the Chicago Monster School of the 1950s. Later, he was known for his intricately patterned interiors and landscapes. His career ...

, in Philadelphia, PA.

References

Sources

External links

* {{coord, 35, 4, 49.8, N, 106, 37, 9.7, W, region:US, display=title Lithography Organizations based in Albuquerque, New Mexico Printing in the United States