FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Patti Buster, (727) 712-5226

 Tarpon Springs, February 25, 2020 – The Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art (LRMA) at St. Petersburg College will hold the special event, WOMAN-MADE Printmaking Festival, on Saturday, March 7, 2020, from 11:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m. The event, included with museum admission, will feature women printmakers from the Tampa Bay area, a keynote speaker, gallery talks, hands-on art and printmaking activities for all ages, refreshments and gallery guides.

WOMAN-MADE Printmaking Festival celebrates the museum’s special exhibitions Louisa Chase: What Lies Beneath and WOMAN-MADE: From the Collection. Both exhibitions celebrate the power of the female voice in contemporary art and feature a variety of fine art prints by renowned artists including Louisa Chase, Lesley Dill, Howardena Pindell, Alison Saar and Miriam Schapiro. The event also honors the centennial of the ratification of the 19^th amendment, Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day.

Museum Curator Christine Renc-Carter will begin the festival with a gallery talk at 11:00 a.m. to introduce the special exhibitions, which she curated and which complement each other. Both shows will be on view at the museum through April 19, 2020.

At 1:00 p.m., Andrew J. Saluti–a professor in the School of Design at Syracuse University, a master printer, and the author of a forthcoming catalogue raisonné on Louisa Chase–will give a keynote presentation about Chase and her prints. Saluti is also a curator and has organized the exhibitions Kamikaze Curiosity: Louisa Chase Prints, recently on view at The Louise and Bernard Palitz Gallery in New York City, and Louisa Chase: Below the Surface, a retrospective exhibition on view at the Parrish Art Museum in 2019. Saluti has said:

“I was first attracted to Chase’s work through our shared professor of printmaking, Don Cortese. He regularly donated student work to the art collection on campus, and her prints stood out immediately…. I was drawn to the pictographic and playful nature of her etchings, as well as her clear interest in innovative techniques and experimentation….”

At 2:00 p.m., following Saluti’s presentation, Linda Berghoff, artist, printmaker and fine art instructor at St. Petersburg College, will present in-depth information about three Miriam Schapiro screenprints on view in the WOMAN-MADE exhibition. A leader in the Feminist Art Movement, Schapiro created the prints at Berghoff-Cowden Editions in Tampa, a studio founded by Berghoff’s mother, Lois Berghoff, with Dorothy Cowden.

Throughout the event from 11:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m., Tampa Bay area artists and printmakers Demeree Barth, Elizabeth Coachman, Marjorie Greene Graff, Ali Norman, and Polly Perkins will demonstrate print processes such as woodcut, linocut, etching, mezzotint, lithography and screenprinting. A selection of their prints will be on view in the Fine Arts Lobby where they will be demonstrating.

For further information, please contact LRMA Education Coordinator Patti Buster at (727) 712-5226 or buster.patti@spcollege.edu.

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Accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, the Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art is located just west of U.S. Highway 19 at 600 E. Klosterman Road on the Tarpon Springs Campus of St. Petersburg College. Hours are 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Friday, and 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. on Sunday. The museum is closed on Mondays and major holidays. Admission is $10 for adults, $8 for seniors, and free for children 17 and under, students and active-duty members of the military with ID, and LRMA members. Guided tours are offered every Sunday at 2:00 p.m. and are included with admission. Isabelle’s Museum Store is open during regular museum hours.

Header photo from Leepa-Rattner facebook page.