The Emergence of New York City Community Printshops
@ The James Gallery CUNY Graduate Center, 365 5th Avenue, NY, NY 10016
Lauren Rosenblum, CUNY Grad Center Moderator
Eleanor Magid, Founder of Lower East Side Printshop
Nitza Tufiño, El Taller Boricua
robin holder, former Assistant Director of The Printmaking Workshop
RSVP requested, not required. rbpmw@efanyc.org
robin holder was born in Chicago in 1952 and grew up in an activist family in New York City, where she became aware of racial, class, and ethnic dynamics from an early age. She learned to explore these themes through art while attending LaGuardia High School for Music and Art and later studied at The Art Students League of New York for two years. After spending five years living in Mexico, Ecuador, and Holland, she returned in 1977 to join Robert Blackburn’s Printmaking studio as an artist and assistant director, refining her unique printmaking technique. For the next three decades, holder worked as an art educator while maintaining her artistic practice, gaining recognition through numerous exhibitions, commissions, and community arts projects.
Nitza Tufiño born in 1949 to Mexican and Puerto Rican parents, spent her childhood living in Puerto Rico, New York City, and Mexico. When she moved to New York in 1969, she became involved in establishing El Museo del Barrio, where she created the original façade artwork. Around the same time, she worked as a consultant on Puerto Rican and Caribbean art for both the Brooklyn Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, helping to elevate Latino artists into the mainstream art world. Tufiño also co-founded El Taller Boricua, a collective of Puerto Rican artists, and served as the master printmaker and director of the Rafael Tufiño Printmaking Workshop. As a board member of Friends of Puerto Rico, she opened the Cayman Gallery in SoHo, which later became the Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art (MOCHA).
Eleanor Magid is the founder of Lower East Side Printshop, established in 1968 and still operating today. After attending Smith College, Magid moved to New York City in the early 1950s to further her art. She studied printmaking under Robert Blackburn and taught art at Percy Ellis Sutton Search for Education, Elevation and Knowledge (SEEK) Program at Queens College.
