PRIVATE COLLECTION
New World Prints maintains a private collection focusing on the preservation and promotion of fine art prints from leading printed media artists of the Americas. Currently, our collection contains four categories of material:
Vanegas Arroyo Publishing House Archive
Golden Age of Mexican Cinema
Commercial Art
Selected Artists
Vanegas Arroyo Publishing House Archive
Our main focus concerns the Vanegas Arroyo Publishing House Archive. The Archive was assembled by New World Prints from a wide variety of sources including significant material originating from the Mexico City based printing house of Don Antonio Vanegas Arroyo (Puebla,1852-1917). Don Vanegas Arroyo was the patron of master printmakers Jose Guadalupe Posada (Aguas Calientes, 1852-1913) and Manuel Manilla (Mexico City, (1830-1895) and it was under his direction that the two produced literally thousands of engravings. Their art work supported a multitude of topics ranging from political satire to what is perhaps their most popular imagery – “La Calavera”, literally “the skull” or skeleton. Calavera images were selected to accompany the stories, news and songs of the day that appeared in the chapbooks, pamphlets and broadsheets published by Don Antonio. The illustrations conveyed a variety of themes including mortality through a living imagery concerned with the varied activity of life yet a conscious reverence of the grave.
Don Antonio, through the art of Posada and Manilla, helped influence generations of artists. Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orosco, Jean Chalot, Leopoldo Mendez and the Taller Grafica Popular; the La Raza art movement in the United States and rock and roll’s The Grateful Dead, are but a few of noted influence. Perhaps more importantly Don Antonio also reported, recorded and swayed public opinion at a critical time in the history of Mexico. His spirit of activism was continued by his children and grandchildren --even into the 20th and 21st centuries. Thanks to the influence of Don Antonio Vanegas Arroyo, there is a rich representation of the political, historical and religious artwork that reflects and records a significant period in the history of Mexico and the United States.
Inspired by these traditions and with the kind cooperation of members of the Vanegas Arroyo family especially our late friend Arsacio “Toto” Venagas Arroyo, who was instrumental in helping us build this collection of works, a mission dedicated to ensuring the preservation and promotion of the artists’ represented in our collection was undertaken. New World Prints was founded and the materials, many of which were rarely seen or unknown, are testimony to the success of the project to date.
Golden Age of Mexican Cinema
The period between 1935 and 1959 is often referred to as the Época de oro del cine Mexicano or Golden Age of Mexican Cinema. This phrase of reference represents the name given to a time when the film industry flourished in Mexico. Documenting and preserving this period is significant not only to the industry of Mexican cinema arts but to the evolutionary history of the Mexican people in and out of the United States. The collection contains thousands of film lobby cards and posters, highlighted by an anthology of works by Ernesto Garcia Cabral (1890-1968) and Francisco Rivera Gil (1899-1972).
Commercial Art
As materials relating to the main emphasis of the collection were accumulating, it became apparent that contributions by artists in the broad field of commercial art were noteworthy due to their influence on period trends but also from historical and artistic perspectives. This portion of the collection is limited at present but nonetheless one that is growing.
Selected Artists
Occasionally we may come across the work of an artist or artists that we believe to be unique. It may not even be within the domain our main focus but sometimes we encounter someone who may be under represented or struggling to communicate a message that we feel compelled to help. In such cases those works may be added to the collection and may even find their way into the Gallery of works available for purchase.
Collaborations
In 2003, New World Prints and Trillium Press joined collaboration to preserve and promote the works of Jose Guadalupe Posada, Manuel Manilla and other leading print artists from the Americas. Electric Works is the latest evolutionary stage of Trillium Press and may be reached at http://www.sfelectricworks.com/ew.htm
Philip Sanders is the Director/Master Printer of the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop. He was formerly a Master Printer for Universal Limited Art Editions (ULAE) and studied lithography at the Tamarind Institute. He has collaborated with a wide variety of artists including: Jasper Johns, Terry Winters, Elizabeth Murray, Enrique Chagoya, Hung Liu, James Sienna, and Kiki Smith, to name a few. Phil has taught at Stanford University and San Francisco State University. He has been professionally printing for the last eleven years at various print-workshops across the country. He has shown his own work internationally and is versed in lithography, intaglio, photo-gravure, relief, and book-binding techniques.
Research Access
Although a private collection, New World Prints welcomes researchers and is open to educational exhibitions of its collections. For inquiries contact us at: info@newworldprints.com |
