Artist, League Instructor, and 2024 Arts Students League Gala honoree James Little has made four benefit prints to support the League's mission to make fine art education accessible to all.
Created at Powerhouse Arts with Zaire Anderson, Luther Davis, and Thomas Zhuang, the four benefit prints are based on original artworks selected from the depth and breadth of Little’s career. They include a never-before-seen gouache on paper from the 1980s and a recent homage to the legendary singer and actress Eartha Kitt. Each print is in an edition of 50.
"Before this project, I had never done a screenprint edition. I've done prints—several editions, including one with the legendary printmaker and League alumnus Robert Blackburn—but not at this scale," says Little. "The four prints, made to benefit the Art Students League where I am an instructor, represent several different moments within my career and, together, give a good view into my practice.
We’ve done well working with Powerhouse Arts and their printmakers Zaire Anderson, Luther Davis, and Thomas Zhuang. It was a great experience to show them the original works, allow them to look closely at them, and interpret them through the medium of print. Together we had a great rapport and made four very strong and powerful prints that I’m excited to share with the world."
"The inspiration for the original work on paper came to me a number of years ago. It references bògòlanfini or mudcloth, the handmade cotton fabric from Mali traditionally dyed with fermented mud. Bògòlanfini is characterized by simple lines that produce high contrast patterns. I liked the fact that it uses forms on dark ground—literally through brown and black mud. In my work, I, too, use gesture and color to create formal structure. Like in the original work on paper, the print appears to be black, but upon closer look, a rainbow of colors is visible. Generally, the titles of my work come from observations or personal experiences. I met Eartha Kitt years ago at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. She was a very nice woman, so I read up on her life and how she struggled with discrimination. This work honors her legacy."
"Untitled originated as a watercolor—color layered in various degrees of transparency absorbed into paper. When I made the original work on paper, I was focused on the medium: water and color, and the organic relationship between the two. I was not thinking about imagery. Like the original, the screenprint is divided into sections with gridlines forming clearly visible columns. Unlike the original, color is applied onto—not into—the paper, sitting on the surface of the screenprint. Despite that, it mimics the nature of watercolor in the way it bleeds from one color to the next. Translating such a complex watercolor into to a screenprint pushed the limits of printmaking to its extreme—a challenging but gratifying process."
"Untitled originated as a watercolor—color layered in various degrees of transparency absorbed into paper. When I made the original work on paper, I was focused on the medium: water and color, and the organic relationship between the two. I was not thinking about imagery. Like the original, the screenprint is divided into sections with gridlines forming clearly visible columns. Unlike the original, color is applied onto—not into—the paper, sitting on the surface of the screenprint. Despite that, it mimics the nature of watercolor in the way it bleeds from one color to the next. Translating such a complex watercolor into to a screenprint pushed the limits of printmaking to its extreme—a challenging but gratifying process."
"Revisionist 1989 represents an exploration of form through a simple geometric shape: a circle. It also explores color through the layering of multiple blues. When I made the original work on paper with paint, I was interested in achieving something holistic, something that has closure, both literally and figuratively. I was confident that it would translate well into a screenprint because it is a bold, dynamic color field. Through the use of over a dozen shades of blue, the print is at once harmonious as it is dynamic, celebrating a field of color that reverberates both inward and outward."
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