Limited Editions: Joseph Holston Prints, 1974-2010, A Retrospective
Limited Editions: Joseph Holston Prints, 1974-2010, A Retrospective
Limited Editions: Joseph Holston Prints, 1974-2010, A Retrospective organized by the David C. Driskell Center and co-curated by Lisa Hodermarsky, the Stuphin Family Associate Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs at the Yale University Art Gallery and Dr. Robert E. Steele, Executive Director of the David C. Driskell Center, the exhibition features 72 prints by Maryland based artist Joseph Holston. The exhibition is presented at the David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the Visual Arts and Culture of African Americans and the African Diaspora at the University of Maryland. Limited Editions opened on Thursday, April 21, 2011, with a reception from 5pm to 6:30pm. The Tenth Annual David C. Driskell Distinguished Lecture in the Visual Arts; Jock Reynolds, The Henry J. Heinz II Director of the Yale University Art Gallery, presented his lecture “Afro-American Presence in American Art: From the Battle of Bunker Hill to Now,” at the Driskell Center on Thursday, April 21, 2011, beginning at 6:30pm, immediately following the exhibition opening reception. The exhibition stayed on display at the Driskell Center until Friday, June 17, 2011.
Limited Editions, features a view into the life and works of Joseph Holston. Throughout his career, his colorful screenprints, black and white etchings, and collagraphs have been able to express emotions which viewers are able to immediately identify with. As noted by curator Lisa Hodermarsky, “…along with this simplification of form came a heightening of expressiveness in Holston’s work: of movement, emotion, and feeling. Even the artist’s monochrome etchings became increasingly more colorful as the years passed, and as the forms and lines became more simplified they simultaneously took on a more emotive form of expressiveness.”
The exhibition, featuring prints from 1974 to 2010, highlights “Holston’s ongoing quest for a mastery of line, color and form in printmaking,” as described in Prof. Driskell’s words. Limited Editions also includes four copper plates, four color separation plates, and seven progressive prints for the etching Man in Boat, highlighting the creative process of printmaking. Commissioned by the David C. Driskell Center, Man in Boat was a collaboration between Joseph Holston and Prof. Curlee R. Holton, the David M. '70 and Linda Roth Professor of Art and Founder of Experimental Printing Institute at Lafayette College at Easton, PA. In addition, Limited Editions includes works from Color in Freedom: Journey along the Underground Railroad, one of his most recent accomplishments. Color in Freedom tells the story of the crusade to reach freedom through the Underground Railroad. The series is presented in four parts: “The Unknown World”; “Living in Bondage–Life on the Plantation”; “The Journey of Escape”; and “Color in Freedom;” each enticing the viewers’ emotions through his extraordinary use of color as well as expressive line and form. Holston’s Color in Freedom series was inspired by his appreciation for symphonic structure, as he was listening to classical music, as well as jazz, while creating the series. Effortlessly leading viewers through this journey, Holston’s works celebrate all phases of life.