Presses, Pop And Pomade: American Prints Since The Sixties

The centerpiece of that section is Phagan's favorite: Andy Warhol's emblematic 1967 silk screen print "Marilyn" from his portfolio of ten screen prints of the actress. Phagan says her attention keeps coming back to "Marilyn," which she describes as "an icon of the Sixties." Many of Warhol's images came to typify the decade. He had turned to silk-screening around the time of Monroe's death in 1962. Warhol published "Marilyn" at his press, Factory Additions, in an edition of 250 and it was printed by Aetna Silkscreen Products. "Marilyn" is centered between Lichtenstein's 1965 "The Melody Haunts My Reverie" and Rosenquist's 1968 "See Saw."

Lichtenstein is generally considered the first practitioner of Pop Art, the movement that emanated from and at the same time arose in reaction to Abstract Expressionism. Pop Art resurrected the three-dimensionality that Abstract Expressionism had disregarded. The subjects of Pop Art works were primarily drawn from popular culture, whether it was advertising, the news or other aspects of culture. Artists, particularly Lichtenstein, adapted comic strip figures and gave them topical and political importance.

Lichtenstein produced "Melody" the year after Life magazine asked, "Is he the worst artist in America?" His use of Benday dots, thick outlines and bold colors with startling results caused many to look askance at his work. He told one interviewer that he found the industrialization that many decried interesting. For him, the commercialism of advertising signs and comic strips were subjects of interest.

Rosenquist, who began his career as a billboard painter, also embraced readily the images of advertising and pop culture and incorporated them into his work. His work is more abstract than that of Warhol and Lichtenstein. His image of Mao Tse-tung imposed against repetitions of the words "upper, middle, lower" resembles a political poster and offers a terse comment on circumstances in China.

Frank Stella is another of the giants of the era whose minimalism signaled a new abstraction. His 1967 lithograph "Point of Pines" was based on the last of his "Black Paintings," the black canvases with only white pin stripes.

Bauhaus-trained artist, teacher and designer Josef Albers is represented by his 1968 screen print "DRb" from his "Homage to the Green Square." The 1966 lithography "Summer in Venice I" by Russian American artist Adja Yunkers represents the transition from Abstract Expressionism to the gestural abstraction of the 1960s.

Ronald Brooks Kitaj made the screen print and photo-screen print "Civic Virtue all over the Floor" in 1967. Printed at the Kelpra Studio in London, the image hearkens back to Dadaism.

The gallery devoted to work of the 1970s showcases the decade's developments in abstraction, figuralism and realism that were rooted in Pop Art. Artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Jim Dine and Larry Rivers integrated images of daily life into their works. In his 1971 lithograph "Decoy," Johns combined elements from his 1966 prints "Passage I" and "Passage II" with the photograph of an ale can and the canceled plates of his "First Etchings." The title "Decoy" refers to a distraction or subterfuge designed to conceal a person or object. The prints on view appear to have layers that both reveal and obscure an inner image, depending on the eye, the light and time.

In Ellsworth Kelly's 1973 untitled lithograph, the artist played shape, color and the paper off against each other. Red Grooms celebrated life in New York in his vibrant "Taxi Pretzel" from his "No Gas" series. The image easily captures the kinetic energy and color of life in the city. Photographic realism also emerged in prints in the 1970s, typified by the Richard Estes' 1970 print "Cafeteria," which is striking in its complex geometric counterpoints.

An untitled 1973 screen print by Washington, D.C., color field painter Sam Gilliam delivers stunning flat blocks of color against thick, handmade paper, making the paper as much a part of the piece as is the form.

The decade of the 1980s is represented by such artists as Richard Diebenkorn, Michael Mazur, Julian Schnabel and David Salle, whose work exhibits a more figurative expressionism than seen previously.

Schnabel's untitled etching and aquatint from his 1983 portfolio "Tod: Cage Without Bars" was printed on delicate Japanese paper and demonstrates the juxtaposition of style, technique and materials.

Mazur created layers within layers in his 1985 monotype and pastel "Vine Tree Winter III." A similar figurative expressionism is evident in "Besieged" by Richard Bosman.

The Nineties saw even greater developments in abstraction and figurism, often in combination to express personal and cultural identities. Louise Bourgeois created "Stamp of Memories II" in 1994 in a playful and lurid exploration of femininity. Ellen Gallagher's 2004 "Duke" looks at African American men.

"Presses, Pop and Pomade" had its genesis in the organization of a traveling exhibit of prints from Vassar's impressive collections. In assembling the exhibit, Phagan says she selected the most significant prints of the period. It was, as she notes, a time of profound cultural, social and political change and the images on view reflect that turmoil. The work represents giants of the Twentieth Century and defines the fluctuations of the 1960s and 1970s.

Vassar College was the first college in the country to have been established with its own art collection and gallery. It was founded in 1861 by Englishman Matthew Vassar, who in 1864 purchased a chunk of the art collection of the art patron and Baptist minister Reverend Elias Lyman Magoun. Vassar donated the 3,789-piece collection of paintings drawings, prints, works on paper and photographs. The college has built on the collection over the years and now owns more than 16,000 works.

The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, which opened in 1993, houses the collection that illustrated the history of art from antiquity to the present.

"Presses, Pop and Pomade: American Prints Since the Sixties" remains on view through March 19. The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center is at the entrance to the campus of Vassar College. For information, 845-437-5632 or www.fllac.vassar.edu.