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Exhibition Introduction

Note to the Reader
Acknowledgments

Introduction
Keith
John
Leslie
Self-Portrait

Introduction
Touched Red
Green
Combination
High Green Version 1

Introduction
17 Drawings by Thoreau
Seven Day Diary (Not Knowing)
Changes and Disappearances
Where R=Ryoanji
Fire
The Missing Stone
75 Stones
Eninka
Stones
Where There is Where There

Introduction
Anne Appleby
Pia Fries
Darren Almond
Susan Middleton
Joel Fisher
Brad Brown
Tom Marioni

Introduction
Mamma Andersson
Sol LeWitt
Fred Wilson
Robert Bechtle
Kiki Smith

Introduction
Julie Mehretu
Wayne Thiebaud
Jockum Nordström
Tomma Abts
Nathan Oliveira
Chris Ofili

Introduction
Pat Steir
Laura Owens
Wayne Thiebaud
Amy Sillman

Brad Brown

Brad Brown, Untitled, 1999

Working proof for Untitled 1 and Untitled 2
1999
color spitbite aquatint, sugarlift aquatint, etching,
softground etching, and drypoint
plate: 18 × 23 1⁄8 (45.7 × 58.7)
sheet: 23 3⁄4 × 29 3⁄4 (60.3 × 75.6)
Crown Point Press
Brad Brown, Untitled, 1999

Untitled 1
1999
color spitbite aquatint, sugarlift aquatint, etching,
softground etching, and drypoint printed from forty plates
each plate: 4 1⁄2 × 5 3⁄4 (11.4 × 14.6)
sheet: 15 1⁄2 × 29 1⁄4 (39.4 × 74.3)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Kathan Brown,
2001
Brad Brown, Untitled, 1999

Untitled 2 (impression 9)
1999
color spitbite aquatint, sugarlift aquatint, etching,
softground etching, and drypoint printed from forty plates
each plate: 4 1⁄2 × 5 3⁄4 (11.4 × 14.6)
sheet: 15 × 29 1⁄4 (38.1 × 74.3)
Kathan Brown

Brad Brown began by rolling dice to select from a cache of doodles he had made from newspaper photographs. He etched these into six medium-sized copperplates. The working proof here is printed from two of those plates — one inked in black, one in sepia orange. Brown then cut each plate into sixteenths to yield ninety-six smaller plates. He rejected sixteen plates on visual grounds, then allocated forty to print Untitled 1 and an equal number to print Untitled 2 (five plates were required to print each rectangular image). Brown ceded control over each impression’s unique composition, authorizing the printers to select, order, and orient the plates every time they were printed.

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Brad Brown working on Untitled 1 and Untitled 2 at Crown Point Press, 1999, photograph by Kathan Brown, Courtesy Crown Point Press

Banner image: Detail, Susan Middleton, Requiem, 2008, color photogravure, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Kathan Brown, Courtesy Susan Middleton

Next: Tom Marioni

"Yes, No, Maybe: The Art of Making
Decisions," lecture by exhibition curators Judith Brodie and Adam Greenhalgh (audio)

Julie Mehretu, artist, in conversation with curator Judith Brodie, Diamonstein-Spielvogel lecture (audio)

"An Insider's Perspective," lecture by Kathan Brown, founder of Crown Point Press (audio)

Exhibition tour by curators Judith Brodie and Adam Greenhalgh (audio)

Brad Brown in the collection of the National Gallery of Art

Crown Point Press prints in the collection of the National Gallery of Art

Press release