Printmaking

For photos of our large-scale American French Tool Press named "Betsy" in honor of Betsy Worden, CLICK HERE.
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Our MFA degree program has been ranked 4th nationally in the 2009 US News and World Report Rankings of Graduate Program in the Fine Arts (view PDF of the report).

The Printmaking Program provides a complete studio experience leading toward BFA and MFA degrees with regular courses in intaglio, lithography, relief and monotype, papermaking and screenprint. Emphasis is placed on both traditional and exploratory techniques and concepts, including monoprints, combinations of print and non-print methods and photo-print processes including non-silver photographic processes. No style, technique or aesthetic approach is stressed over another, so that the individual quality of one's work is the essential measure of achievement. UT art students, especially our graduate students and undergraduate majors are expected to work with the entire printmaking toolbox, from traditional to digital processes. Gaining a command of these tools allow the artist to choose the appropriate print medium and technique for a given concept.

Visiting Artist Helen Frederick consults Koichi Yamamoto, Ericka Walker and Jason Shoemaker during a week-long collaborative project in the UTK Print Workshop in March 2009.

The print area encourages a pedagogical approach that treats prints as one of many tools in an expanded field of art production. In serving this wide range of areas within the school of art, printmaking has the potential to function as an important meeting ground for artistic issues and approaches, from the autographic and painterly, to the mechanical, computer aided and photographic. In this sense, print forms can function as a bridge, crossing the boundaries which divide the fine from the applied arts. For this reason, we see the mission of the print area as a critical component of the school's overall mission.

The Printmaking program has a linkage agreement with the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznañ, Poland. Through this relationship two of our students spend the month of May as guest artists in Poland. Two students from Poznan come to UTK each Fall in the same capacity. See the "Gallery" section of this web site for more on this program.

At the University of Tennessee we have an active community in our shop, with frequent visiting artists, an active student-lead print club, and an annual Open House and Celebrity Print Sale (including prints by UT athletic coaches, at right UT Football Coach Phil Fulmer makes a zinc etching plate for a student fund-raiser to attend the annual Southern Graphics Council Conference.). We have even made prints with elephants from the Knoxville Zoo under the direction of the New York artists Komar and Melamid. We believe that making art can be serious fun.

Printmaking Department

School of Art
1715 Volunteer Boulevard
Knoxville, Tennessee 37996-2410 Phone: 865-974-3407
Fax: 865-974-3198
blyons@utk.edu

To locate the Art & Architecture Building on Campus, click here