19
●
ROBERT BLACKBURN (1920 - 20003)
Color Symphony
.
Color lithograph on cream wove paper, circa 1960. 400x560 mm; 15
3
/
4
x22
1
/
8
inches, full margins.
Artist proof, aside from the edition of 15. Signed, titled, and inscribed “A/P” in pencil, lower margin.
From 1957 to 1963, Blackburn served as the first master printer at Universal Limited Art Editions
(ULAE),West Islip, NY. In most cases, he taught the artists, including Jim Dine, Helen Frankenthaler,
Jasper Johns, and Robert Rauschenberg, how to make lithographs, sharing his sensibility of the
medium and his approach to the stone. Blackburn’s own prints from the period show the stylistic
influence of Frankenthaler, Grace Hartigan and Larry Rivers, early practitioners at ULAE, with his
adoption of their more fluid and organic forms.
In 1963, he began to operate his own Manhattan workshop full time, providing an open studio for
artists of diverse social and economic backgrounds, ethnicities, styles, and levels of expertise. Under his
direction, the PrintmakingWorkshop became known internationally as a vital collaborative art studio.
[2,000/3,000]
