The Asheville Art Museum will host its second annual Fine Art Print Fair this Saturday and Sunday. It’s a weekend dedicated to prints and printmakers. Lest we forget the collectors — that is, if you’re in the market to start that personal art collection, or add to an existing one.
It’s also one of the rare occasions that art enthusiast and museum-goers alike have access to viewing some of the bigger names in early and mid-20th century artists. So if you’d like to check out some 1930s WPA works or a few Picasso and Joan Miro etchings and lithographs, this is your weekend.
“I think one of the main draws of the Print Fair is the fact that no other venue or event in WNC offers this level of access to such a diverse range of fine art prints, available for purchase no less,” says Kathleen Glass, the museum’s communications manager. “Even for those simply previewing, it will be a rare opportunity to view such a wide breadth of works from galleries outside of WNC — with Matrix Register as the local exception.”
Print dealers from Pennsylvania, Tennessee, North and South Carolina will bring a mix of modern and contemporary etchings, engravings, screen prints, lithographs and photographs.
Charlotte’s New Gallery of Modern Art offers attendees and collectors big-name modernists ranging from Chagall and Dali to Warhol and Damien Hirst. King Snake Press, located just across the South Carolina border, and Matrix Register, an Asheville-based print collective, feature regional and local works produced by active print studios.
Philadelphia’s Dolan/Maxwell returns this year with a collection of works that includes a number of WPA artists, including Georgia-born printmaker Dox Thrash. Thrash’s prints may be familiar to regular AAM patrons. They were included in the museum’s 2011 Artists At Work: American Printmakers and the WPA.
The museum opens the weekend with a ticketed preview reception party this Friday evening from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., during this season’s first art walk. It’s an opportunity for serious collectors to meet the dealers and other art collectors in a personal manner. All with a backdrop of live music paired with beer, wine and hors d’oeuvres. Attendees will also get a first look, and maybe grab, at this year’s stock of prints.
“It is also a networking opportunity, and a chance to share common interests in collecting with other avid art lovers,” says Glass.
The Fine Art Print Fair will be open during normal museum hours this Saturday, May 4 and Sunday, May 5. It’s free with membership or daily museum admission ($8). For more information, click here.
Photo courtesy of the Asheville Art Museum
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