UCLA Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts at the Hammer Museum

The collection of the UCLA Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts comprises more than 45,000 prints, drawings, photographs, and artists' books dating from the Renaissance to the present. Established in 1956 with a substantial gift from Fred Grunwald, the collection has been steadily enriched through significant acquisitions and donations. A primary resource for teaching and research, the Grunwald Center houses one of the most significant collections of works on paper in the country. The Grunwald Center is home to several important Los Angeles-based collections. These include the archives of Sister Corita Kent (1918–1986), the Tamarind Lithography Workshop, and Edition Jacob Samuel. Designer of the “LOVE” postage stamp first issued by the United States Postal Service in 1985, Sister Corita Kent was art director at Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles until 1968. Her colorful screen prints address social and political issues through the visual language of Pop Art and experimental typography. The Grunwald Center’s collection features several thousand examples of her work, including rare preparatory studies. The Tamarind Lithography Workshop was founded in 1960 by printmaker and painter June Wayne, a leader in the movement to revive the art of lithography in Los Angeles. Through partnerships between master printers and important contemporary artists, the workshop produced an eclectic group of limited edition lithographs. The Grunwald maintains a complete record of the first 20 years of Tamarind’s activities, offering a rich cross section of contemporary printmaking in Los Angeles and internationally. Co-owned with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Jacob Samuel Archive documents the activities of master printer Jacob Samuel, who has been working out of his Ocean Park studio since 1988. Samuel, who has collaborated with artists ranging from Marina Abramovic to Christopher Wool, reinvents classic intaglio techniques to create stunning examples of contemporary printmaking. The Grunwald has been enriched by its long-standing association with the UCLA Department of Art. It houses an extensive selection of works by UCLA art department faculty from the past five decades, including Clinton Adams, William Brice, John Paul Jones, Catherine Opie, and James Welling. The Grunwald also maintains an important collection of works by Los Angeles photographers trained under Robert Heinecken, who established the Grunwald’s photography collection as a teaching resource for the photography program he built at UCLA.