top of page
Image by Manik Roy

Vinalhaven Press, Vinalhaven, Maine

Print workshop specializing in experimental intaglio, lithography, and monotypes.


Vinalhaven Press Ferry blind stamp (on Robert Indiana print)

Vinalhaven Press was founded by artist and former Director of the New England Museum Association, Patricia Nick. Nick had spent summers during her childhood on Vinalhaven, an island off the coast of Maine where Robert Indiana would find refuge in his reclusive later years. Seeking proximity to contemporary artists and to be involved in their art-making, Nick set out to turn the island's abandoned schoolhouse into Vinalhaven Press. She would run the Press from its founding in 1985 to 1999 (sources vary on the year the shop closed).


Vinalhaven Press, with Tim Amory, Chris Erikson, Pat Nick, and Jessica Rice (?). From the Smithsonian Archives of American Art

Nick and her master printers serviced the burgeoning artist colony on the island, with clients such as Indiana, Mel Bochner, Alex Katz, Peter Saul, Charles Hewitt, Leon Golub, Yvonne Jacquette, and Robert Morris.


When the summers ended, Nick followed her artist clientele back to the cities, establishing Vinalhaven Press galleries in New York. The Press's success spread quickly, so much so that the Portland Museum of Art exhibited the workshop's prints in 1997 ("In Print: Contemporary Artists at the Vinalhaven Press").


Nick closed the Press in 1999, returning to her own artwork. She donated the workshop's records and catalogues to the Smithsonian Archives of American Art in 2000. She died on the island on September 29, 2021.


Resources:



Comments


bottom of page