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Garo Z. Antreasian
Reflections on Life and Art
Introduction by William Peterson
Published by: University of New Mexico Press
Garo Z. Antreasian (b. 1922) belongs to the great generation of innovators in mid-twentieth-century American art. While influenced by a variety of European artists in his early years, it was his involvement with Tamarind Lithography Workshop starting in 1960 that transformed his work. As Tamarind's founding technical director, he revolutionized the medium of lithography. He discovered how to manipulate the spontaneous possibilities of lithography in the manner of the Abstract Expressionist painters. In addition to reflecting on his work, he writes movingly about his Armenian heritage and its importance in his art, his teaching, and his love affair with all sorts of artistic media. Illustrating his drawings, paintings, and prints, this book reveals Antreasian as a major American artist.
This book was made possible in part by generous contributions from the Frederick Hammersley Foundation and Gerald Peters Gallery.
Garo Z. Antreasian is a professor emeritus in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of New Mexico. He was the founding technical director of the Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles, a position he also held when Tamarind moved to the University of New Mexico and was renamed the Tamarind Institute. Antreasian was the principal author of The Tamarind Book of Lithography: Art and Techniques (coauthored by Clinton Adams). His award-winning work has been featured in more than seventy exhibitions and is held in numerous public and private collections.
William Peterson is an art historian, critic, and editor. From the mid-1970s to the early 1990s he was the editor and publisher of Artspace magazine, a critical journal of contemporary art published in Albuquerque and later Los Angeles.
"Antreasian looks to his past to illuminate his process and the origins of that mysterious spark that has moved him to create throughout his life. The book is at once the chronicle of a life as well as a meditation on the things that make us who we are--in Antreasian's case, a tireless, unflaggingly curious creator."--Weekly Alibi
"Profusely and beautifully illustrated with an impressively detailed commentary."--Midwest Book Review
"A personal recollection of a renowned artist whose contributions to American printmaking are deservedly and widely valued. Through exploration of his Armenian roots, his family life in the Midwest and Southwest, and the intricate balancing act of a working artist, husband and father, educator, printmaking wizard and painter, Antreasian's autobiography emerges as a particularly American story of innovation, technology, and persistence."--Peter S. Briggs, Helen DeVitt Jones Curator of Art at the Museum of Texas Tech University