S3e16 on taking in a Shark's Ink's archive with curator Hope Saska

Platemark: prints and the printmaking ecosystem

In s3e16, host Ann Shafer speaks with Hope Saska, chief curator and director of academic engagement at the CU Art Museum, that’s the museum at the University of Colorado Boulder. Hope’s specialty is in 18th-century British graphic satire and caricature. But like so many curators of works on paper, she can talk to you about Albrecht Dürer through tomorrow.

CU Art Museum recently become the repository of the archive of the print publisher Shark’s Ink, Lyons, CO. The Sharkive contains prints and related materials—all printed by Bud and Barbara Shark in the last 40 years—of collaborative work in lithography, monotype and woodcut. According to CU’s website: “It contains the final print from each of more than 700 limited editions and a rich assortment of preparatory materials—drawings, reference materials, color trial proofs, proofs with paper alternatives and artist and printer notes, and color separation proofs—that reveal the artistic and the printmaking processes.” You can read more here: https://www.colorado.edu/cuartmuseum/collection/sharkive. In addition, the Art Museum has an exhibition on view through July 2023 featuring highlights from the Sharkive.

Hope and Ann geek out over how in the world does one wrangle such a gift, down to the numbering system used to track all the various bits. It’s always fun to think about the nitty gritty of managing a sizeable collection. Some of the ins and outs may surprise Platemark listeners.

Episode image: Photo by Patrick Campbell, CU Senior Staff Photographer, © CU Art Museum

William Hogarth (British, 1697–1764). The Five Orders of Periwigs, 1761. Etching. Sheet: 11 7/8 x 8 5/8 in. (30.2 x 21.9 cm.). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Romeyn de Hooghe (Dutch 1645–1708). The Epiphany of the New Antichrist, 1689. Etching and letterpress. Sheet: 22 9/16 x 15 7/16 in. (57.3 x 39.2 cm.). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Betty Woodman assembles Vases and Windows prints at Shark’s Ink, Lyons, CO.

Curator Hope Saska (right) and Registrar Maggie Mazzullo (left) with a sliver of the Sharkive, CU Art Museum, Boulder, CO. Photo: CU Art Museum Sharkive Collection. Photo by Patrick Campbell, CU Sr. Staff Photographer, © CU Art Museum.

Bud Shark prints Convergence in his studio Shark’s Ink in Lyons, CO, 2014. Photo: Shark’s Ink.

Bud Shark looks on as Enrique Chagoya signs work at Shark’s Ink, Lyons, CO, 2005. Photo: Shark’s Ink.

Installation view of Onward and Upward: Shark's Ink, CU Art Museum, September 6, 2022–July 2023. Photo by Wes Magyar, © CU Art Museum.