Prairie_Print_Makers
Prairie Print Makers
American Printmaking Society
The Prairie Print Makers was a society of print artists and collectors headquartered in Wichita Kansas and active from 1930 to 1966. Formed by a group of Kansas artists, its objective was "to further the interest of both artists and laymen in printmaking and collecting". Membership was by invitation only and consisted of active artists who paid only $1 per year, and associates who paid $5 per year. A third category of free honorary membership was conferred by the governing board to those who contributed to the cause of print making and collecting.
Two principal activities were employed to achieve the society's goals. First, an artist member was commissioned each year to produce a print, typically limited to an edition of 200, solely for distribution to the associate membership. Second, the society sponsored annual sales exhibitions of new works by society artists. These were sent to schools, social clubs, museums, art clubs, universities, and libraries. A collection of available prints went to the east and south, the west (including Hawaii), and the mid-west, with a fourth set held in reserve to meet demand. The prints from these shows were purposely priced low, from 3 to 15 dollars, "so that the public may enjoy the opportunity to purchase these excellent specimens of American art for personal use or gifts".[1]
The Prairie Print Makers group was modeled on The Chicago Society of Etchers, the Society of American Etchers, and Print Makers of California. It was meant to complement and augment such older societies whose memberships were full and who focused only on intaglio prints. Like its California counterpart, the Prairie Print Makers embraced not just etchings, but lithographs, wood engravings, woodcuts, and linoleum cuts as well.
Though membership expanded well outside the original mid-west origins, much of the art produced for the society is in the regionalist tradition, featuring serene scenes of small towns, farms and rural landscapes of the mid-west. Presentation prints were to be produced "in the realist tradition of observable life" and must "reflect the tradition and art of printmaking itself".[1]