October 6, 2016–March 26, 2017
| Exhibition Location: |
The Met Fifth Avenue, Floor 2, Gallery 464
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Atelier 17, the celebrated print studio established in Paris in 1927 by the influential British artist Stanley William Hayter (1901–1988), had a profound impact on 20th-century art. In the workshop’s collaborative atmosphere, techniques and imagery were shared freely by artists to create new possibilities for printmaking. In this fertile environment, the Indian artists Krishna Reddy (b. 1925) and Zarina Hashmi (b. 1937), who is professionally known as Zarina, evolved their own unique styles and techniques. While the workshop tradition had served as the fundamental structure for artistic work in India and the Muslim world for centuries, the dialogic space of Atelier 17 represented a radical departure from tradition and led the artists to new modes of expression.
Opening Thursday, October 6, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the exhibition
Workshop and Legacy: Stanley William Hayter, Krishna Reddy, Zarina Hashmi explores the workshop model and the relationships among these three expatriate print masters.
Among some 40 examples on view areworks by each of the artists, including two dozen works lent by Reddy and Zarina. Printmaking techniques represented include intaglio, linocut, and woodcut. A copper plate used in the printmaking process, cast paper, and several sculptures is also displayed.
Reddy and Hayter collaborated on an innovative form of simultaneous multicolor printing from a single plate, known as the “viscosity” method. As a co-director of Atelier 17 (1964–76) and later as a professor at New York University (from 1977), Reddy advanced the viscosity method to develop a distinctive print style of his own.
Zarina’s use of Urdu and Arabic calligraphy echoes the most fundamental artistic tradition of the Muslim world, where the practice of copying sacred letters and texts has a long and prestigious history. Extensive travels have contributed to her engagement with maps and plans, which she uses to express ideas relating to home, exile, and migration.
Reddy and Zarina participated in The Artist Project, an online series on The Met website in which artists were invited to respond to works in the Museum’s encyclopedic collection (
http://artistproject.metmuseum.org/6/krishna-reddy/ and
http://artistproject.metmuseum.org/1/zarina-hashmi/).
The Artist Project is supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies.
The exhibition is featured at
www.metmuseum.org, as well as on
Facebook,
Instagram, and
Twitter.
Reddy and Zarina will be in discussion with Sumeshwar Sharma, of Clark House Initiative, Mumbai, and the exhibition curators about the legacy of Atelier 17 on Friday, October 7, at 4 p.m. in the Bonnie J. Sacerdote Lecture Hall, Ruth and Harold D. Uris Center for Education. The program is free with Museum admission.
This event is generously funded by The KMC Foundation and The Irene Diamond Fund.
The exhibition is organized by Navina Haidar, Curator, Department of Islamic Art, and Jennifer Farrell, Associate Curator, Department of Drawings and Prints.
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October 6, 2016
Image: Zarina Hashmi (American, born India, 1937).
Atlas of My World I, 2001. Woodcut with Urdu text printed on Indian handmade paper. Promised gift from the artist
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