Image and Text Center

Image and Text Center
Name	Image and Text Center
Established	1980s
Location	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Type	Nonprofit arts organization

Image and Text Center Image and Text Center is a nonprofit arts organization located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania that focuses on printmaking, photography, letterpress, and artist books. The Center operates as a production studio, exhibition space, and educational hub that intersects with artists, publishers, curators and collectors including practitioners associated with Philadelphia Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, and Library of Congress. Its programming has engaged with figures and institutions such as Pablo Picasso, Jasper Johns, Betye Saar, Sol LeWitt, and Maya Angelou through exhibitions, workshops, and collaborative projects.

Overview

The Center serves as a site for print and book arts, offering studio access, curatorial projects, artist residencies, and workshops that connect to networks of galleries and museums like Guggenheim Museum, Tate Modern, Centre Pompidou, Hammer Museum, and Fogg Museum. It has hosted artists and writers associated with National Endowment for the Arts, Ford Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and Tyler School of Art. Activities include letterpress, etching, silkscreen, relief printing, and photography, attracting collaborations with figures from Ansel Adams to Cindy Sherman.

History

Founded in the 1980s by a coalition of printmakers, poets, and artists with ties to institutions such as University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and MoMA PS1, the Center emerged during a resurgence of artist-run spaces paralleling organizations like Printed Matter, Southern Graphics Council, and Los Angeles Printmaking Society. Early exhibitions featured collaborations with artists connected to Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Louise Bourgeois, and Eva Hesse, while visiting lecturers included scholars from Columbia University, Yale University, Harvard University, and Princeton University. Funding and programmatic models mirrored precedents set by Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and MacDowell.

Mission and Programs

The Center's mission emphasizes production, preservation, and presentation of printed and textual art, aligning with grantmakers and partners such as National Endowment for the Arts, Getty Foundation, Knight Foundation, Kresge Foundation, and Surdna Foundation. Programs include artist residencies, curatorial internships, collaborative projects with publishers like Aperture Foundation, Graywolf Press, City Lights Publishers, and Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Public-facing programs engage curators, critics, and artists associated with Roberta Smith, Holland Cotter, Amanda Petrusich, Lucy Lippard, and Lawrence Alloway.

Collections and Exhibitions

The Center maintains a rotating exhibition schedule and an archive of prints, multiples, and artist books that interacts with collections at Library of Congress, Morgan Library & Museum, Yale Center for British Art, British Library, and New York Public Library. Exhibition histories include thematic shows referencing work by Henri Matisse, Ed Ruscha, Kara Walker, Richard Serra, and Julie Mehretu, and curated projects joined by guest curators associated with ICA London, New Museum, Carnegie Museum of Art, and Walker Art Center. The Center issues limited-edition publications that have been acquired by collectors and institutions such as Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Art Institute of Chicago, and Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Education and Community Engagement

Educational offerings include workshops, apprenticeships, and school partnerships modeled in collaboration with Philadelphia School District, Barnes Foundation, Curtis Institute of Music, and Community College of Philadelphia. Outreach has connected with community arts organizations like Mural Arts Philadelphia, Public Citizens for Children and Youth, AmeriCorps, and YouthBuild USA, as well as university programs at Rutgers University, Drexel University, and Haverford College to support emerging artists, educators, and scholars.

Governance and Funding

Governance is typically overseen by a board comprising curators, artists, collectors, and nonprofit managers with affiliations to Independent Sector, Association of Art Museum Directors, Council on Foundations, and regional arts councils such as Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Funding streams include project grants from National Endowment for the Arts, philanthropic support from foundations like Rockefeller Foundation and Carnegie Corporation, membership dues, earned income from workshops, and capital campaigns modeled on campaigns at institutions like Philadelphia Museum of Art and Museum of Modern Art.

Reception and Impact

Critical reception in outlets such as The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Artforum, Art in America, and Hyperallergic has recognized the Center for sustaining craft practices and influencing regional print culture, with alumni working at institutions including Smithsonian American Art Museum, Getty Research Institute, Cooper Hewitt, and National Gallery of Art. The Center has been cited in scholarship alongside movements and figures such as Fluxus, Dada, Conceptual Art, Postminimalism, and artists like Joseph Beuys, Yayoi Kusama, and Barbara Kruger for its role in preserving print and book arts traditions.

Category:Arts organizations based in Pennsylvania