The screenprinting workshop Brand X Editions has been a hub of collaboration and invention since its founding by master printer Robert “Bob" Blanton in 1979, working with artists such as Mickalene Thomas, KAWS, Jeff Koons, and many more. Reuniting with her co-curator Dr. Louis Marchesano, the Marion Boulton “Kippy” Stroud Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs and Conservation at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the DMA’s Dr. Emily Friedman will moderate a conversation with Blanton, Marchesano, Tamsin Doherty (lead chromist and studio director at Brand X), and Jamie Miller (master printer and one of the original team members at Brand X) on the occasion of the DMA’s exhibition X Marks the Spot: Contemporary Screenprinting at Brand X Editions.
Tickets:
DMA Members: Free with registration
Public: $5 lecture only
Public: $25 exhibition preview and lecture
Master printer Robert Blanton began his career in 1974 at Styria Studio in New York, collaborating with artists on such projects as James Rosenquist’s F-111, Robert Rauschenberg’s Chow Bags, and Roy Lichtenstein’s Still Lifes. Five years later, Blanton opened his own studio in New York, Brand X Editions. Robert Blanton is the founder and master printer at Brand X Editions.
Tamsin Doherty is a silkscreen printmaker based in New York City. Before joining Brand X Editions, she studied painting and art history at Pratt Institute. She has exhibited her own paintings in commercial galleries in New York City, though she prefers the collaborative nature of printmaking to solo endeavors. Over a decade at Brand X Editions, she has had the pleasure of working closely with artists including Alex Katz, Rashid Johnson, Tschabalala Self, Adam Pendleton, and Brian Donnelly, among many others.
She grew up in Beverly, Massachusetts, drawing portraits of her friends and hunting crabs along the shore. Her grandfather and namesake, Tom Doherty, was a photographer, sculptor, and industrial designer in the Midwest. She is the daughter of architects and the sister of a very good hockey player.
James Miller is a printer who has worked in a variety of printmaking techniques. He began printing in 1978 and continues to do so today. Since 2015 he has worked at Brand X Editions. Born in North Carolina, he attended UNC-Greensboro before moving permanently to New York. He holds a BFA in painting and has learned and developed his printing skills in the streets of his chosen city.
Dr. Louis Marchesano is the Marion Boulton "Kippy" Stroud Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs and Conservation at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. He first joined the PMA in 2019 to lead the Department of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, where he shaped collections strategy, mentored emerging curatorial talent, and secured major gifts of art and funding. Before coming to Philadelphia, Marchesano served as the Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, where he focused on building collections and organizing exhibitions such as A Kingdom of Images: French Prints in the Age of Louis XIV, for which the French Ministry of Culture awarded him the Ordre des Ideas et des Lettres, an order of knighthood. His last Getty project, Käthe Kollwitz: Prints, Process, Politics, was praised for its innovative curatorial insight and received the prestigious Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award for museum scholarship from the College Art Association.
Dr. Emily Friedman is the inaugural Allen and Kelli Questrom Assistant Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Dallas Museum of Art. Prior to joining the DMA in 2024, Friedman held positions at several institutions, including the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where she collaborated on the first iteration of the Brand X Editions exhibition. At the DMA, she has curated On Stage: Society and Dance, 1860–1920, Roy Lichtenstein in the Studio, and Paper Technologies: Italian Prints and Drawings. She holds a PhD in History of Art from The Johns Hopkins University and her research has been supported by organizations such as the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and the Association for Print Scholars.
Image: Nobody Puts Baby in the Corner, 2022. Deborah Kass. Screenprint, printed in seven colors. Philadelphia Museum of Art: Gift of Brand X Editions, New York, 2023. © Deborah Kass/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
