Outlaw Printmakers

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Outlaw Printmakers" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (May 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

The Outlaws of Printmaking, also known as "The Outlaws" and "Outlaw Printmakers" are a collective of printmaking artists that exists internationally. The idea of "Outlaw Printmakers" formed from a show in New York at Big Cat Gallery in 2000. Tony Fitzpatrick, the owner of the Big Cat Press which is associated with the gallery, decided to call a show there "Outlaw Printmaking" to reflect attitudes of the printmakers involved in a non-academic approach to prints.^[1] As pointed out by Sean Starwars, the Southern Graphic Council print conference was happening at the same time as that show in NYC across the water in New Jersey. A handful of artists from the conference attended the show.^[2]). At that conference the core group now known as the Outlaw Printmakers formed, adopting the name from the show and continuing their own events, happenings and shows outside of the academic norm. The core members are Bill Fick, Tom Huck, The Hancock Brothers, Sean Star Wars, Dennis McNett and Cannonball Press. Many of the core artists associated with the movement cite the printmaker/artist Richard Mock as a primary influence. Mock's political and social narrative prints appeared in the New York Times op-ed pages for more than a decade in the 1980s and early 1990s. Later the group grew to include Carlos Hernandez, Drive By Press, Ryan O'Malley, Artemio Rodriguez, Kathryn Polk, Erica Walker, Derrick Riley, and Julia Curran.

Organized by Tom Huck, a traveling exhibition titled "Outlaw Printmaking" started touring the nation in 2003 including works by Sue Coe, Michael Krueger, Peregrine Honig, and Bill Fick. Their work can be found in the collections of the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts; The New York Public Library, New York City, Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University, Whitney Museum of American Art, Bibliothèque Nationale de France and the Museum of Modern Art.

Organized by Dennis McNett and curated by Josef Zimmerman, a museum exhibition called "Outlaws of Print" at the Ft. Wayne Museum of Art in 2018. The show featured work from all of the Outlaws which include: Richard Mock, Bill Fick, Tom Huck, Dennis McNett, Sean Starwars, John and Charles Hancock, Carlos Hernandez, Erika Walker, Kathryn Polk, Artemio Rodriguez, Martin Mazorra, Derrick Riley, Ryan O'Malley and Julia Curran.^[3]