Minneapolis Institute of Art acquires complete archive of Highpoint Editions

The Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) has acquired the complete archive of works by Highpoint Editions, the publishing arm of Highpoint Center for Printmaking (HP), a nonprofit printmaking art center established in 2001 in Minneapolis. The 20-year archive comprises 310 published prints and multiples, plus 700 items of ancillary production material from 40 artists, including Carlos Amorales, Julie Buffalohead, Willie Cole, Sarah Crowner, Jim Hodges, Julie Mehretu, Todd Norsten, Chloe Piene, David Rathman, Do Ho Suh, and Dyani White Hawk.

Mia will showcase 150 artworks this fall in the special exhibition “The Contemporary Print: 20 Years at Highpoint Editions.”

The accession was made possible by the Friends of Bruce B. Dayton Acquisition Fund and the Christina N. and Swan J. Turnblad Memorial Fund. The Highpoint Editions archive is Mia’s third archival acquisition, joining Vermillion Editions Limited and the Fly Zine Archive in the museum’s permanent collection.

“We are thrilled to add the Highpoint Editions archive to Mia’s contemporary art collection,” said Dennis Michael Jon, Associate Curator of Prints and Drawings at the museum. “Highpoint Editions has emerged as one of America’s premier printmaking studios and a destination for prominent local, national, and international artists. By showcasing these prints for our audience, we hope to emphasize how integral contemporary printmaking is to contemporary art practice as a whole.”

Scheduled to open in October 2021, “The Contemporary Print: 20 Years at Highpoint Editions” will examine the story of Highpoint’s founding, growth, and achievements through innovative installations of a diverse selection of published prints and multiples by leading contemporary artists. Displays of ancillary production material—such as preliminary drawings, trial proofs, working proofs, progressive state proofs, and printing matrices—will illustrate the methods and processes of the major traditional printmaking techniques of intaglio, relief, lithography, screenprinting, and monotype and showcase the creative versatility of Highpoint Editions’ collaborations with artists.

Exhibition highlights will include:

• Willie Cole’s Beauties, a series of 28 large-scale intaglio prints made from flattened metal ironing boards

• 23 prints made by Carlos Amorales in 2010, using imagery drawn from his long-running Liquid Archive project

• Dyani White Hawk’s Takes Care of Them, a suite of prints inspired by Plains style women’s dentalium dresses, honoring Native American collective care values

• Printmaking demonstrations designed to inspire and inform visitors with methods and materials integral to the art form.

An online catalogue raisonné featuring fully-illustrated documentation of the published editions and monotypes included in the Highpoint Editions archive at Mia will also accompany the exhibition.

Highpoint co-founders Cole Rogers, Artistic Director and Master Printer, and Carla McGrath, Executive Director, said the organization is honored and delighted to have Highpoint Editions’ 20-year archive of prints acquired by the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

“Highpoint was founded on the belief that printmaking and prints are a democratic art form, and the Highpoint Editions Archive was created from day one to live in a place that would uphold that belief,” Rogers said. “Considering Mia’s commitment to prints, drawings, and works on paper, their exceptionally strong print collection of over 40,000 works, their incredible curatorial team, and their beautiful Print Study Room which is free and open to all – Highpoint’s Archive could not have found a better permanent home.”

About Highpoint Center for Printmaking

Highpoint Center for Printmaking was established in 2001 and is the only accessible, community-oriented facility of its kind in the Upper Midwest. Until Highpoint opened its doors, broad public access to the printmaking arts was virtually non-existent in this part of the country. The publishing arm Highpoint Editions produces fine art prints made by invited professional artists in collaboration with Master Printer Cole Rogers and Highpoint Editions staff.

Highpoint advances the work of artists by presenting artists’ projects to a broad public through gallery shows, lectures and symposia and by placing Highpoint prints in important public and private collections around the world. Prints created at Highpoint Editions can be found in numerous public, corporate, and private collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, NYC, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Walker Art Center, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Centre Pompidou.