Southwest Impressions : Prints from the Barbara J. Thompson Collection

Since the late 1800s, Euro-American artists have used diverse printmaking methods to represent the people, animals, architecture, and landscapes of the American Southwest. Organized by process—intaglio, lithography, block printing, and serigraphy—the prints in this collection span around about seventy dynamic years. They start in the 1880s, soon after the arrival of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, and continue through the tourism boom of the early 1900s. During the hardships of the Great Depression and into the 1940s, programs such as the Graphics Division of the Federal Arts Program, part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, kept many printmakers afloat. Works from this challenging period reveal artists’ continued fascination with the Southwest and broadened stylistic experimentation. This publication celebrates Barbara J. Thompson’s generous gift made in honor of her grandfather, the printmaker C. A. Seward.