Image: Robert Mangold, C Yellow, from Three Aquatints, 1979. Aquatint and etching. Courtesy of the artist. © Robert Mangold / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; Photo: Frank E. Graham
"Parasol Press: Breaking New Ground", on view at Print Center New York until 19 December 2026, looks at the first decade of a publisher that the exhibition presents as one of the most influential print publishers of the twentieth century. Organized by the Addison Gallery of American Art at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, the show opened in New York on 17 September.
Parasol Press was founded in New York in 1970 by Robert Feldman (1937–2022). It became known for bringing a generation of Minimalist and Conceptual artists to printmaking, artists who took up the serial character of the medium and paid close attention to the physical qualities of the printed surface. According to the organizers, the exchange ran in both directions: the artists changed printmaking, and printmaking in turn shaped their work.
The New York presentation is drawn from a larger retrospective at the Addison earlier this year, which covered four decades of the press's production and, according to the organizers, was the first comprehensive survey of its impact on the field. That exhibition was accompanied by a publication edited by the curator, Rachel Vogel, the first to document the full range of Parasol's editions.
The selection in New York concentrates on the 1970s, with work by Mel Bochner, Chuck Close, Sol LeWitt, Robert Mangold, Sylvia Plimack Mangold, Brice Marden, Agnes Martin, Edda Renouf, Dorothea Rockburne and Robert Ryman, among others. Among the prints reproduced by the center is Robert Mangold's "C Yellow", from "Three Aquatints" (1979), an aquatint and etching.
Vogel is assistant curator at the Addison Gallery of American Art. Her work centres on modern and contemporary art, and she previously worked at Harvard's Johnson-Kulukundis Gallery, among other venues. She holds a PhD in art history from Harvard.
A programme of events accompanies the exhibition. Vogel will discuss Parasol Press with Judy Hecker in a virtual talk on 28 October, and Mira Dayal leads "An Economy of Means: Contemporary Artists on Minimalism", a gallery talk on 6 November. With the Lower East Side Printshop, the center is also hosting hands-on copper-etching intensives on 31 October and 7 November, and Andrew Witkin will lead a tour of the exhibition on 12 December.
