Collecting for the Cause: Activist Art in the 1960s and ‘70s

December 17, 2005 – March 12, 2006

In the 1960s and early '70s, many American artists actively questioned the artist's role and responsibility in the public sphere. As they sought political relevance for their work, the relatively easy duplication and dissemination of works on paper made printmaking a choice medium.

Selections from two portfolios of prints—one created as a protest to the Vietnam War and one as a philanthropic endeavor for the Museet Moderna in Stockholm—revealed how individual artists such as Louise Nevelson, Robert Rauschenberg, and Mark di Suvero came together for common causes.

Each print collected for these portfolios has its own aesthetic integrity, but collectively these images represent the will and agency of artists who sought to influence the artworld and the socio-political spheres that lay beyond it.