Elizabeth Wyckoff Livres

"When artists began making prints in bright colors and previously unimaginable formats and sizes in the 1960s, they launched an explosion of printed imagery in the United States. A new generation of artists was already incorporating printmaking techniques into their paintings, and this, in combination with ordinary, everyday subject matter, led art, and the practice of art, in radical new directions. At the same time, a number of technically savvy entrepreneurs established printmaking workshops across the United States, and coaxed sometimes recalcitrant painters and sculptors to experiment with making prints. Under these circumstances, printmaking rapidly expanded from a standard set of processes into an increasingly complex field of possibilities, adapting industrial technologies and nontraditional materials, both to respond to new aspirations and to achieve new goals. 'Graphic Revolution: American Prints 1960 to Now' explores this transformational decade and those that followed, drawing exclusively from St. Louis collections."

A dazzling array of contemporary American art acquired from Hall of Fame baseball catcher Ted Simmons and master printer and fine-art print publisher Maryanne Ellison Simmons. This exhibition catalogue showcases the diversity and relevance of the exceptional collection acquired from St. Louis collectors Ted L. and Maryanne Ellison Simmons. These new additions address a broad array of contemporary cultural issues and aesthetic topics from the 1960s to the present. Catching the Moment: Contemporary Art from the Ted L. and Maryanne Ellison Simmons Collection highlights one hundred stellar examples from the more than eight hundred works in a collection recently acquired by the Saint Louis Art Museum. The diverse collection of contemporary art, made mostly by artists active in the United States, includes prints, drawings, and photographs as well as sculptures and a painting. The book traces the Simmonses' focus on art and artists of their own time, and on the broader social, political, art historical, and technical issues that have engaged both the artists and the collectors.