HARLAN & WEAVER
Special thanks to Harlan and Weaver for the loan of work by Louise Bourgeois for this exhibition.
“Harlan & Weaver, Inc. is a workshop and publisher specializing in etching and other forms of intaglio printmaking. In their Lower Manhattan studio, Felix Harlan and Carol Weaver provide the facilities and technical assistance for artists to complete a successful project. Artists working with Harlan & Weaver have created some of the most notable etchings of the past two decades.
Since its beginning in 1984, Harlan & Weaver has worked with publishers such as Baron/Boisante Editions, Peter Blum Edition, the Cleveland Museum Print Club, Edition Schellmann and Kluser, Feldman Fine Art, Marlborough Graphics, Multiples, Parasol Press, James Cohan Gallery and the Whitney Museum of American Art. These publishers have commissioned works at Harlan & Weaver by such artists as Ida Applebroog, Richard Artschwager, Donald Baechler, William Bailey, Louise Bourgeois, Francesco Clemente, Robert Cottingham, Red Grooms, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Yun Fei Ji, Brice Marden, Tom Otterness, Roxy Paine, Mimmo Paladino, Kiki Smith, Fred Tomaselli, and Not Vital.
In addition to printing works commissioned by others, Harlan & Weaver has published works by Richard Artschwager, William Bailey, Christiane Baumgartner, Louise Bourgeois, Robert Cottingham, Steve DiBenedetto, Carroll Dunham, Nicole Eisenman, Joanne Greenbaum, Joey Kötting, Chris Martin, Thomas Nozkowski, Michelle Segre, James Siena, Kiki Smith, Mark Strand, José Antonio Suárez Londoño, and Stanley Whitney.
Prints made at Harlan & Weaver have been acquired by important contemporary print collections, both private and public, including, in New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the New York Public Library, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, as well as the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The British Museum, London; Tate Britain; Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris; Daros Collection, Zurich; Kunstmuseum Bern; Beyeler Foundation, Riehen/Basel; Houston Museum of Fine Arts; and Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Felix Harlan and Carol Weaver have lectured and taught printmaking workshops at Cornell University, Randolph-Macon Women's College, Rhode Island School of Design, Mount Holyoke College, and Yale University.”
Louise Bourgeois in front of STE SÉBASTIENNE in her Brooklyn studio (1993). Photo: © Vera Isler, © The Easton Foundation/VAGA, NY.
“Felix Harlan, with his gentle manner and specialized expertise, established an intimate working relationship with Bourgeois, spending several days a week at her house and becoming thoroughly attuned to her creative process. Initially, Harlan & Weaver was recommended to Bourgeois by Judith Solodkin of SOLO Impression, when Peter Blum Edition needed an intaglio printer for the Anatomy series, published in 1990. By the mid-1990s Harlan had refurbished Bourgeois's old printing press and set it up on the lower level of her house. Although suitable only for small-scale works, the press and its proximity accelerated the rate of Bourgeois's printmaking. Harlan added a second press in 2003, and also worked on projects at his shop's presses.
Whenever new proofs were ready, Bourgeois was filled with anticipation, averting her eyes while Harlan set them up; she wanted the "shock" of the first impression. Before leaving each day, Harlan placed proofs in blotters on Bourgeois's work table so that, in the morning, they would be ready for her to begin altering with hand additions. Many of Bourgeois's most important print projects, in her favored drypoint and in other intaglio techniques, were created with Harlan & Weaver.