Hot Type is a Portfolio of 25 hand pulled prints by members and staff of the Providence Art Club.
This portfolio project was conceived in 2018 as a submission to the Southern Graphics Council (SGC) 2021 Conference that was scheduled to take place in Providence, Rhode Island. Although the conference was cancelled due to the pandemic, all of the artists agreed that it was important to continue and see the project to completion. The prints in this portfolio speak to both personal and national issues. Collectively they document a unique time, a time when the use of superlatives -- unprecedented, incomprehensible, unfathomable -- became commonplace. A time when artists sought to understand a world of distortions, discord, and disease and responded with various measures of wit, clarity, and integrity. Printmaking has a long and proud tradition as a visual voice; it is exercised here using both beauty and ugliness to speak through these prints.
Each individual print represents the views of the printmaker who created it and does not reflect those of the Providence Art Club.
Collections
Portfolio edition #1/28 was donated to the Providence Art Club (PAC) Collection.
Edition #2/28 was auctioned to raise funds for the purchase of PAC studio equipment and then donated by the collector, Dr. Joseph A. Chazan, to the Rhode Island School of Design Museum Graphics Collection at the request of curator Jan Howard.
Edition #3/28 was held against the possibility of entering it in a rescheduled SGI International conference portfolio competition.
Edition #4/28 was acquired by The Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History, for the Graphic Arts Collection.
Edition #26/28 was acquired by the Mystic Museum of Art.
The remaining portfolios are in the collections of the participating artists.
In Print
Smithsonian curator, Joan Boudreau featured Hot Type in her blog article Artistic inspiration in the face of pandemic
(March 9, 2023).
Specifications
25 hand pulled prints from 25 artists
Produced in a limited edition of 28
Print size 11” x 11”
Includes: Archival clamshell box crafted by Portfoliobox.com
Introduction by Michael Rose, gallery manager, art historian, and appraiser
Artist Statements and other documentation