Preface and Acknowledgments

This catalogue raisonné represents the culmination of a long-standing relationship between the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) and the Highpoint Center for Printmaking. Both share a passion for advocacy, access, and excellence in the field of visual arts, and the kinship has only grown over the years. That excellence is especially apparent in the prints and multiples produced by Highpoint Editions, the publishing arm of Highpoint Center for Printmaking. Since its founding in 2001, Highpoint Editions has emerged as one of the country’s premier print workshops, attracting prominent local, national, and international artists.

When Mia curators and Highpoint directors raised the possibility of providing a permanent home at Mia for Highpoint Editions’ print archive, the two organizations went to work to make it happen. In December 2020, Mia formally established the Highpoint Editions Archive. As a record of Highpoint’s first twenty years of production, it includes examples of some three hundred editioned prints and multiples and selected monotypes, plus more than one thousand items of ancillary production material. The latter consists of trial and working proofs, progressive proof sets, preparatory drawings, color tests, “false starts” (unrealized projects), and printing plates and blocks—materials particularly valuable to visitors seeking insights into the techniques and processes of traditional printmaking.

All of the prints in the new Highpoint Editions Archive at Mia are the result of a collaboration between thirty-eight exceptionally talented artists and Highpoint master printer Cole Rogers. This archive will stand forever as a testament to the quality of their work and their contributions to contemporary printmaking.

The archive exists as a resource for students, artists, collectors, historians, and the public at large. To facilitate research, this digital catalogue raisonné provides virtual access to the archive through the museum’s website. Along with illustrated essays and biographies on the workshop and its artists, we’ve included full documentation and high-resolution images of each artwork, with hyperlinks to related proofs or other production material. In this effort, we hope to increase awareness of the museum’s extensive holdings of postwar and contemporary prints and its long-standing commitment to art of our time.

Presenting the accomplishments of Highpoint Editions in this innovative digital format is the collective achievement of many talented individuals, and I want to express my profound appreciation to them all. Special thanks go to art historians Jennifer L. Roberts, professor at Harvard University, and Jill Ahlberg Yohe, associate curator of Native American art at Mia, for their discerning essays—Jennifer for her insights into Willie Cole, and Jill for her observations on the Native American artists in the Highpoint Editions Archive. My sincerest thanks also go to my Mia colleagues Marla J. Kinney, curatorial fellow, and Ian Karp, John E. Andrus III Curatorial Fellow, for their incisive and informative artist biographies; and Kristin Lenaburg, curatorial assistant, for her tireless efforts cataloguing the artworks and innumerable other contributions to the project.

I also wish to thank Mia colleagues Kristine Thayer, engagement strategist and senior designer, for her inspired and innovative publication design; Laura Silver, editor, for her skillful and meticulous editing; Dan Dennehy, head of visual resources, and his staff, Charles Walbridge, lead collections photographer, and Josh Lynn, digital media specialist, for their outstanding photographs of the artworks; Frances Lloyd-Baynes, head of collections information management, and Kjell Olsen, web developer, for their vital technical and problem-solving expertise; and Alex Bortolot, content strategist, for his patient and assiduous project management.

For their generous and invaluable assistance in making this catalogue raisonné a reality, my heartfelt thanks go to Highpoint Center for Printmaking cofounders and directors Carla McGrath and Cole Rogers and their dedicated professional staff, including Zac Adams-Bliss, Megan Anderson, Levi Atkinson, Josh Bindewald, Tyler Green, Marni Kaldjian, Sydney Petersen, and Sara Tonko, as well as the many Highpoint staff members and interns who over the years helped realize the outstanding prints featured here.

At Mia, I am also grateful to Katherine C. Luber, Nivin and Duncan MacMillan Director and President; Matthew Welch, deputy director and chief curator; Casey Riley, chair of global contemporary art; and Tom Rassieur, John E. Andrus III Curator of Prints and Drawings, all of whom were unwavering in their encouragement and support of this project.

For their invaluable assistance and advice, my thanks also go to Mia colleagues Julianne Amendola, Michaela Baltasar-Feyen, Darcy Berus, Maggie Davis, Joseph Doherty, Gretchen Halverson, Brian Kraft, Kenneth Krenz, Leslie Ory Lewellen, Janice Lurie, Peggy Martin, Rachel McGarry, Lisa Nebenzahl, Jennifer Komar Olivarez, Heidi Raatz, Nicole Soukup, Julia Sugarman, and Keisha Williams.

Finally, on behalf of the Minneapolis Institute of Art and its Department of Global Contemporary Art, I want to extend my deep gratitude to the Association of Research Institutes in Art History (ARIAH) for their generous financial support of this digital publication.

Dennis Michael Jon
Associate Curator, Global Contemporary Art
Minneapolis Institute of Art