DETROIT - Many are aware of the enormous contributions Arthur C. Danto has made to contemporary art through his writings on philosophy and criticism. The ‘artworld' as it has become known was first defined by Danto as a means to explain how Andy Warhol's Brillo Box of 1965 was a work of art. However few know Danto as a successful artist - a decade-long career that preceded his tenure as one of the most highly regarded philosophers of our time. Recently, to much excitement worldwide, recognition of his art making is being revived. Spurred by an exhibition at the University of Illinois in 2009 that revisited Danto's work as a printmaker, arrangements were made soon after for the entirety of his personal work, both prints and the woodblocks themselves, to become part of the WSU Art Collection. His gifting of this body of work, a collection of 87 prints and 46 woodblocks, makes WSU the world's foremost resource for scholarly research into the career of Danto as an artist.

Danto, who grew up in Ann Arbor and studied fine art at Wayne University (now WSU), achieved considerable success in NYC as a printmaker from the early ‘50s, exhibiting in such places as the Art Institute of Chicago, the Detroit Institute of Arts, and the National Gallery of Art. Following his solo exhibition at NYC's Associated American Artists gallery in 1960, Danto gave up art making and turned his interests exclusively to philosophy and art criticism. Danto is the Johnsonian Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Columbia University, and from 1984 - 2008 was the art critic for The Nation.

On Saturday, October 15th from 10 - 3PM, on the second floor of the WSU Art Building, Professor Stanley Rosenthal and the printmaking program of the James Pearson Duffy Department of Art and Art History, partnering with the University Art Collection, will present the Arthur C. Danto Printmaking Open House and Demonstration. Funded through a grant from WSU's Research Enhancement Program (REP) for Arts and Humanities, this event is free and open to the public to experience the production of art prints in a professional print shop atmosphere, to witness the creation of two special editions of Danto woodcut prints, The Writer Herbert Gold, and Bull (to be sold to benefit the newly established Arthur C. Danto Printmaking Scholarship), and to learn about the various techniques and methods of printmaking. The REP grant will also fund the printing of several Danto woodblocks that are currently unrepresented in the suite of prints that came from Danto.

Additionally, upon completion of the Danto Master Print Collection, the University Art Collection will create a special online-exhibition of the work, which will include an essay written by Danto as well as essays by WSU grad students in Philosophy and Art History, examining links between the artwork and philosophy of Danto.

Visit http://artcollection.wayne.edu for information on how to purchase the special edition prints and on the launching of the Arthur C. Danto Master Print Collection online-exhibition. For additional information, contact Sandra Schemske, Art Collection Coordinator at cn8290@wayne.edu; or 313 577-9264.

 

 

 

 

Wayne State University, located in the heart of Detroit's midtown cultural center, is a premier urban research university offering more than 400 academic programs through 13 schools and colleges to more than 32,000 students.

The James Pearson Duffy Department of Art and Art History is a division of Wayne State's College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts (CFPCA), educating the next generation of visual artists, designers and art historians. With nearly 6000 works of art, the University Art Collection contributes to the quality of campus life through the exhibition of original works of art and provides a valued educational resource to both local and global communities.