Rockwell Kent, “Home Port,” 1931. Collection of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art.

The largest collaborative fine-arts project in Maine’s history, “Celebrating 200 Years of Printmaking in Maine” is an innovative series of exhibitions, education programs and a symposium about all aspects of Maine printmaking. Organized by The Maine Print Project, a statewide collaboration of 25 art museums and nonprofit arts institutions, “Celebrating 200 Years of Printmaking in Maine” takes place from August through March.

The exhibitions, on view from Qgunquit to Presque Isle, feature prints from the early Nineteenth Century to the present and include such artists as Peggy Bacon, Richard Estes, Beverly Hallam, Charlie Hewitt, Alison Hildreth, Winslow Homer, Edward Hopper, Robert Indiana, Dahlov Ipcar, Yvonne Jacquette, Alex Katz, Rockwell Kent, John Marin, the Qgunquit circle, Neil Welliver and many others.

The Maine Print Project was formed as a collaborative organization by leading Maine arts institutions and museums, including the Portland Museum of Art, the Center for Maine Contemporary Art (Rockport), the River Tree Center for the Arts (Kennebunk), the Colby College Museum of Art (Waterville), the Chocolate Church Arts Center (Bath), the University of Maine Museum of Art (Bangor), with the purpose of offering an opportunity to showcase an array of Maine printmaking in every region of the state. Bruce Brown, curator at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art, is the coordinator and chair for the Maine Print Project.

In addition to the exhibitions, The Maine Print Project offers a special series of education programs, including master classes by printmakers, demonstrations of printmaking using antique letterpresses, silkscreen and woodblock classes, family printmaking festivals, handmade book-making workshops, lectures on the history of Maine printmaking and visits to printmakers’ studios. A highlight of the project is a symposium featuring noted Maine printmakers, historians of Maine printmaking and other artists and scholars.

In conjunction with the exhibitions and programs, the Maine Print Project will publish an illustrated history of Maine printmaking, to be written by printmaking scholar David P. Becker. The history of Maine printmaking has never been documented and substantially collected in one volume, but it has been a largely hidden area of American art.

For more information, visit www.maineprintproject.org or 207-236-2875.