Painting and Drawing | Collages, Projections, and Variants
The Evolution of Bearden's Collage Technique | Printmaking

Techniques: Printmaking

Bearden studied linoleum block printing at New York University in the early 1930s, and he made a few experimental etchings about 1964. However, his serious work in printmaking, which includes approximately one hundred editions in etching, lithography, screenprint, and collagraph came later, in the 1970s.

Bearden's most important printed works are the dozens of unique pieces he made in monotype between 1975 and 1983. The process is a hybrid of painting or drawing and printmaking. Bearden painted his monotype images onto sheets of plastic and transferred them to paper by means of a printing press. He often added details by hand to the transferred images, using graphite, ink, or paint.

Bearden's monotypes and edition prints were accomplished in collaboration with professional printers. All of the monotypes and many editions were made at the Printmaking Workshop, founded in New York in 1948 by Bearden's longtime friend, the printmaker Robert Blackburn (1920-2003). The two men had known each other from their student years in Harlem.

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1. Zach Whyte's Beau Brummel Band, 1980
2. Woman and Child Reading (recto), c. 1984
3. The Family, 1975