2025 Poster Session

Plaster, as a material, has been used for centuries in diverse practices, from casting multiples to creating sculptural forms. This project focuses on plaster prints—works that are singular in their uniquely carved and painted surfaces and multiple in their inextricable relationship to printing matrices. Historically, plaster prints were used to proof or create impressions without the need for a press. Atelier 17, an innovative printmaking studio that was active in Paris and New York in the mid-twentieth century, significantly expanded upon the plaster printing technique. Artists such as Stanley William Hayter, John Ferren, and Anne Ryan worked in this medium, carving and painting their prints after the initial impressions to produce unique works of art. Hayter, who was the founder of Atelier 17, and his contemporaries emphasized that they were not inventing new techniques but rather building on existing ones in a collaborative and experimental environment. Plaster prints have largely fallen into obscurity today, complicating their connoisseurship and preservation.  Using reconstruction as our primary method, our project aims to highlight the materials and techniques originally used in the creation of these prints, which can support our understanding of and care for the extant oeuvre of plaster prints created at and around Atelier 17.  Our work benefitted from collaboration with art historians, artists, and paper and objects conservators.  Bringing insights from these various fields of expertise, we hope to revive interest in this technique, making it accessible to a new generation of artists while underscoring the important contributions of the Atelier 17 printmakers.