Fairfield U. Art Museum Makes Brandywine Workshop Art Acquisition

Press release from Fairfield University:

July 12, 2022

Fairfield University Art Museum (FUAM) is pleased to announce the acquisition of 40 artworks from the Brandywine Workshop and Archives. Works by Adger Cowans, Janet Taylor Pickett, Eduardo “Choco” Roca Salazar, and Larry Walker are among those in the new “satellite collection” at FUAM.

Founded in Philadelphia in 1972 by artist Allan Edmunds, the Brandywine Workshop and Archives is a nonprofit cultural institution celebrated for its engagement with the local community and its educational programming. For five decades, the workshop has offered arts programming in the neighborhoods of Philadelphia, and sponsored printmaking residencies for both undiscovered and well-known artists. At Brandywine, collaboration and the exchange of ideas feed a culture of experimentation, in which master printers and artists continually challenge conventions of the creative process and push the technical boundaries of printmaking to produce exciting new works.

The Fairfield University Art Museum has acquired 39 works by artists from the Brandywine Workshop as part of the workshop’s initiative to place “satellite collections” in university art museums across the United States. According to Brandywine, the satellite program is intended to “bring the art of diverse cultures to institutions and communities that wish to enrich or diversify existing collections.” FUAM joins prestigious institutions including Harvard Art Museums, RISD Museum and the University of Delaware Museums.

The collection includes works from the early 1980s to today by primarily BIPOC artists, with more than 50% of the works by women artists. “The Brandywine works in Fairfield’s newly formed satellite collection have tremendously expanded the voices represented in our collection of contemporary prints,” said Carey Weber, FUAM’s Frank and Clara Meditz Executive Director. “We are delighted to have been able to use our recently established Black Art Fund to partially finance this acquisition.”

Created by the museum in early 2021 to address a lack of diversity in its permanent collections, the Black Art Fund is dedicated to the acquisition of contemporary art by Black artists. Through financial contributions and donations of museum-quality artwork this fund seeks to achieve greater representation and recognition of diverse artists and artwork in the museum’s collection.

Artists whose works are in the new Fairfield University Art Museum Brandywine satellite collection include: Rick Bartow, Selma Burke, Adger Cowans, Allan Edmunds, Rodney Ewing, Maya Freelon, Curlee Raven Holton, Jacob Landau, Samella Lewis, Tanya Murphy-Dodd, Janet Taylor Pickett, Eduardo “Choco” Roca Salazar, Larry Walker, and Jo Yarrington. The print by Yarrington, the 40th work in the collection, is a gift of the artist, who is a professor of Studio Art at Fairfield University. She did a residency at Brandywine in 1985, and has donated an impression of the print that she did there to the museum to fill out the collection.

A selection of these prints is included in an exhibition focusing on the work of contemporary women artists. The exhibition, a curatorial collaboration between museum staff and Fairfield University student Phoebe Charpentier ‘23, is on view in the Bellarmine Hall Galleries until July 15, 2023. A larger exhibition focused on the Brandywine Workshop and Archive is planned for Fall 2024.

This press release was produced by Fairfield University. The views expressed here are the author's own.