PAFA getting Rutgers’ Brodsky paper and print-making center

The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts will absorb the Brodsky Center, a collaborative paper and printmaking center that has been based at Rutgers University, by the end of the month.

Artist and professor of art Judith Brodsky, who founded the Rutgers center in 1986 and who now sits on PAFA's collections committee, said she was delighted with the new arrangement.

"PAFA has a distinguished printmaking tradition, and it is exciting that the Brodsky Center will help take that tradition into the future," she said.  "I know that the collaboration and partnership of PAFA and the Brodsky Center will result in important contributions to the discourse of art."

Clint Jukkala, dean of the PAFA school, said the center "aligns really well with the school and what we do here." PAFA currently has no paper-making programs, although it has printmaking facilities.

The center focuses its attention on enabling artists in the creation of new work in paper and print. It has an inventory of more than 3,000 works of art. A limited number of these prints will be accessioned into PAFA's permanent museum collection, and the rest will be available for sale to support the mission of the center.

Jukkala said the center has a special interest in contemporary art and supporting women and artists of color, which aligns well with PAFA's current concerns.

The center has completed more than 300 editions of prints from a diverse range of emerging and established artists — including PAFA graduate Barkley Hendricks, and artists with work in PAFA's collection, such as Melvin Edwards, Joan Semmel, and Richard Tuttle.

The center's capacity for paper-making is timely, Jukkala said, noting there is growing student interest in paper-making. "We feel it's a great opportunity for us."

Programs should be up and running by the fall, he said.