Brand X Editions: Innovation in Screenprinting

Through November 16, 2025

Morgan, Korman, and Field Galleries

Nobody Puts Baby in the Corner, 2022, Deborah Kass (b. 1952), Silkscreen, printed in seven colors on Coventry Rag paper, Sheet: 57 × 57 inches (144.8 × 144.8 cm), Gift of Brand X Editions, New York, 2023-191-4

Important: By downloading this image, you are agreeing to the following permissions: Images are provided exclusively to the press, and only for purposes of publicity for the duration of an exhibition at the PMA. The Museum grants permission to use images only to the extent of its ownership rights relating to those images--the responsibility for any additional permissions remains solely with the party reproducing the images. In addition, the images must be accompanied by the credit line and any copyright information as it appears above, and the party reproducing the images must not distort or mutilate the images.
Rashid Johnson, Seascape, 2023, Screenprint, printed in nine colors, with hand, applied navy acrylic mixture, Gift of Brand X Editions, New York, 2023, 105-2024-9

Important: By downloading this image, you are agreeing to the following permissions: Images are provided exclusively to the press, and only for purposes of publicity for the duration of an exhibition at the PMA. The Museum grants permission to use images only to the extent of its ownership rights relating to those images--the responsibility for any additional permissions remains solely with the party reproducing the images. In addition, the images must be accompanied by the credit line and any copyright information as it appears above, and the party reproducing the images must not distort or mutilate the images.
Emily Mae Smith, Poetry (Toy in Blood), 2022, Screenprint, printed in forty-seven colors, Sheet: 60 × 45 1/2 inches (152.4 × 115.6 cm), Gift of Brand X Editions, New York, 2024, 105- 2024-30(11)

Important: By downloading this image, you are agreeing to the following permissions: Images are provided exclusively to the press, and only for purposes of publicity for the duration of an exhibition at the PMA. The Museum grants permission to use images only to the extent of its ownership rights relating to those images--the responsibility for any additional permissions remains solely with the party reproducing the images. In addition, the images must be accompanied by the credit line and any copyright information as it appears above, and the party reproducing the images must not distort or mutilate the images.
Untitled (Who is Queen), 2020, Adam Pendleton (b. 1984), enamel screenprint and graphite pigment, Sheet: 64 × 49 inches (162.6 × 124.5 cm), Gift of Brand X Editions, New York, 105-2024-19

Important: By downloading this image, you are agreeing to the following permissions: Images are provided exclusively to the press, and only for purposes of publicity for the duration of an exhibition at the PMA. The Museum grants permission to use images only to the extent of its ownership rights relating to those images--the responsibility for any additional permissions remains solely with the party reproducing the images. In addition, the images must be accompanied by the credit line and any copyright information as it appears above, and the party reproducing the images must not distort or mutilate the images.
Homebodies – All American 1, 2022, Tschabalala Self (b. 1990), monoprint, fabric collage, pigment wash, hand coloring, and enamel silkscreen, Sheet (each): 24 × 18 inches (61 × 45.7 cm), Gift of Brand X Editions, New York, 2023-191-29a,b

Important: By downloading this image, you are agreeing to the following permissions: Images are provided exclusively to the press, and only for purposes of publicity for the duration of an exhibition at the PMA. The Museum grants permission to use images only to the extent of its ownership rights relating to those images--the responsibility for any additional permissions remains solely with the party reproducing the images. In addition, the images must be accompanied by the credit line and any copyright information as it appears above, and the party reproducing the images must not distort or mutilate the images.
Homebodies – All American 1, 2022, Tschabalala Self (b. 1990), monoprint, fabric collage, pigment wash, hand coloring, and enamel silkscreen, Sheet (each): 24 × 18 inches (61 × 45.7 cm), Gift of Brand X Editions, New York, 2023-191-29a,b

Important: By downloading this image, you are agreeing to the following permissions: Images are provided exclusively to the press, and only for purposes of publicity for the duration of an exhibition at the PMA. The Museum grants permission to use images only to the extent of its ownership rights relating to those images--the responsibility for any additional permissions remains solely with the party reproducing the images. In addition, the images must be accompanied by the credit line and any copyright information as it appears above, and the party reproducing the images must not distort or mutilate the images.
Emmanuel Taku, Entanglement, 2022, Screenprint, printed in twenty-three colors with collage elements, Sheet: 60 × 40 1/4 inches (152.4 × 102.2 cm) Gift of Brand X Editions, New York, 2023, 2023- 191-32

Important: By downloading this image, you are agreeing to the following permissions: Images are provided exclusively to the press, and only for purposes of publicity for the duration of an exhibition at the PMA. The Museum grants permission to use images only to the extent of its ownership rights relating to those images--the responsibility for any additional permissions remains solely with the party reproducing the images. In addition, the images must be accompanied by the credit line and any copyright information as it appears above, and the party reproducing the images must not distort or mutilate the images.
Deborah Kass, OY/YO, 2011, Two screenprints, printed in three colors on paper board, Framed: 21 1/2 × 20 inches (54.6 × 50.8 cm) Gift of Brand X Editions, New York, 2023, x22034a,b

Important: By downloading this image, you are agreeing to the following permissions: Images are provided exclusively to the press, and only for purposes of publicity for the duration of an exhibition at the PMA. The Museum grants permission to use images only to the extent of its ownership rights relating to those images--the responsibility for any additional permissions remains solely with the party reproducing the images. In addition, the images must be accompanied by the credit line and any copyright information as it appears above, and the party reproducing the images must not distort or mutilate the images.
Troy Michie, Doubling, 2019, Screenprint, Framed: 40 × 30 inches (101.6 × 76.2 cm), Gift of Brand X Editions, New York, 2023, x22005(6)

Important: By downloading this image, you are agreeing to the following permissions: Images are provided exclusively to the press, and only for purposes of publicity for the duration of an exhibition at the PMA. The Museum grants permission to use images only to the extent of its ownership rights relating to those images--the responsibility for any additional permissions remains solely with the party reproducing the images. In addition, the images must be accompanied by the credit line and any copyright information as it appears above, and the party reproducing the images must not distort or mutilate the images.
Untitled (Figure and Malcolm X), 2020, Adam Pendleton (b. 1984), enamel screenprint and graphite pigment, Sheet: 64 × 49 inches (162.6 × 124.5 cm), Gift of Brand X Editions, New York, 105-2024-20.

Important: By downloading this image, you are agreeing to the following permissions: Images are provided exclusively to the press, and only for purposes of publicity for the duration of an exhibition at the PMA. The Museum grants permission to use images only to the extent of its ownership rights relating to those images--the responsibility for any additional permissions remains solely with the party reproducing the images. In addition, the images must be accompanied by the credit line and any copyright information as it appears above, and the party reproducing the images must not distort or mutilate the images.
Emmanuel Taku, Got You, 2022, Screenprint, printed in twenty-seven colors with collage elements, Sheet: 60 × 40 1/4 inches (152.4 × 102.2 cm), Gift of Brand X Editions, New York, 2023, 2023- 191-33

Important: By downloading this image, you are agreeing to the following permissions: Images are provided exclusively to the press, and only for purposes of publicity for the duration of an exhibition at the PMA. The Museum grants permission to use images only to the extent of its ownership rights relating to those images--the responsibility for any additional permissions remains solely with the party reproducing the images. In addition, the images must be accompanied by the credit line and any copyright information as it appears above, and the party reproducing the images must not distort or mutilate the images.
Chuck Close, Self Portrait, 2017, Screenprint in ninety-one colors, Sheet: 69 × 57 3/4 inches (175.3 × 146.7 cm), Gift of Brand X Editions, New York, 2023, x21994(10)

Important: By downloading this image, you are agreeing to the following permissions: Images are provided exclusively to the press, and only for purposes of publicity for the duration of an exhibition at the PMA. The Museum grants permission to use images only to the extent of its ownership rights relating to those images--the responsibility for any additional permissions remains solely with the party reproducing the images. In addition, the images must be accompanied by the credit line and any copyright information as it appears above, and the party reproducing the images must not distort or mutilate the images.
Rashid Johnson, Untitled Large Mosaic, 2025, Screenprint, framed: 61 X 105 inches (1 154.9x 266.7 cm), Gift of Brand X Editions, New York, 2023, x 22005(5)

Important: By downloading this image, you are agreeing to the following permissions: Images are provided exclusively to the press, and only for purposes of publicity for the duration of an exhibition at the PMA. The Museum grants permission to use images only to the extent of its ownership rights relating to those images--the responsibility for any additional permissions remains solely with the party reproducing the images. In addition, the images must be accompanied by the credit line and any copyright information as it appears above, and the party reproducing the images must not distort or mutilate the images.

July 29, 2025 – The Philadelphia Museum of Art announces Brand X Editions: Innovation in Screenprinting, the first exhibition to spotlight four decades of collaborations between the Brand X printmaking workshop and a diverse roster of contemporary artists. On view through November 16, 2025, the exhibition features more than 80 screenprints by Helen Frankenthaler, Rashid Johnson, Alex Katz, Tschabalala Self, and Mickalene Thomas, among many others.

The exhibition celebrates the transformative gift of the Brand X Editions Archive to the PMA, presenting a selection from the over 400 screenprints given by master printer and founder Robert Blanton. Since establishing the workshop in 1979, Blanton and his team of skilled printers, chromists, and specialists have worked in collaboration with an impressive list of artists to push screenprinting techniques to meet the artists’ varied styles and expressive ambitions. The body of work from Brooklyn-based Brand X builds significantly on the museum’s extensive holdings of historical screenprints, adding major contemporary examples of traditional and experimental techniques. The PMA now holds one of the most comprehensive collections of screenprints along with essential archives related to the medium’s history and evolution from commercial tool to vibrant fine-art technique.

“It is an honor to be the chosen home for Brand X’s magnificent collection of prints, said Sasha Suda, the George D. Widener Director and CEO of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. “As expert printmakers, internationally renowned for their craft, Brand X are the true leaders in this field. For a museum like the Philadelphia Museum of Art, with such a rich and dedicated history in printmaking, it is a privilege for us to have this opportunity to welcome our visitors to experience and enjoy this generous gift.”

On view throughout the galleries are the results of Brand X’s dynamic collaborations across four decades of work. Together, the prints reveal the remarkable versatility of screenprinting. In the first gallery, for instance, works by Rashid Johnson, Deborah Kass, Adam Pendleton, and Mickalene Thomas demonstrate the medium’s ability to mimic the richness of paint layers, render a photographic precision, and produce variegated textures and surfaces. These artists expand the technical boundaries of screenprint in their exploration of themes relating to belonging, memory, and self-definition. From the dense, painterly urgency of Johnson’s Untitled Anxious Red to the layered intricacy of Mickalene Thomas’s November 1977, each work here shows how, at the Brand X workshop, screenprinting can be stretched, challenged, and transformed in response to an artist’s creative impulses.

The exhibition also addresses themes relating to text and language, pattern and decoration, graphic illusion, and landscape and figuration. Eight progressive proofs of Vija Celmins’s Ocean Surface offer a rare view onto the screenprinting process. From print to print, visitors can see how the image was formed cumulatively—by the sequential printing of individual screens, each bearing a single layer of ink. In final form, Celmins’s image materializes through sixteen applications of nuanced grays—an additive and subtle process apt for rendering the depth and detail of the ocean. Throughout the exhibition, equal emphasis is given to the pictorial and the material. Brand X Editions shines light on the technical procedures and the many roles—beyond that of the artist—that are vital to the production of screenprints.

“Just like the work that happens at Brand X, this exhibition and its catalogue were thoroughly collaborative endeavors, said Louis Marchesano, curator of the exhibition and the Marion Boulton “Kippy” Stroud Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs and Conservation. “The addition of the Brand X Editions Archive, which will continue to grow as the studio produces more editions, goes a long way toward building an authoritative resource on screenprinting at the museum.”

Extending the exhibition beyond the gallery space, Rashid Johnson’s Untitled (Large Mosaic), 2025, is displayed in the PMA’s Forum Balcony. For over three years, Johnson and his collaborators at Brand X developed this spectacular 293-color print, combining traditional screenprinting techniques—visible in the flat passages of bold color—with unconventional materials, including wood veneer, mirrored mylar, and cast paper oyster shells. Inspired by Johnson’s low-relief wall mosaics composed of innumerable tile fragments and other bits of material, this project captures Brand X’s enduring commitment to pursuing new levels of technical innovation and experimentation.

Brand X Editions: Innovation in Screenprinting is accompanied by a richly illustrated catalogue featuring essays by PMA curators and paper conservators, an interview with Robert Blanton and David DeSanctis of Brand X, a technical glossary related to the history and technique of screenprint, and an inventory of the archive held by PMA.

The exhibition is curated by Louis Marchesano, the Marion Boulton “Kippy” Stroud Deputy Director of Cultural Affairs and Conservation, with Em Dombrovskaya, the Suzanne Andrée Curatorial Fellow; Laurel Garber, the Park Family Associate Curator of Prints and Drawings; and Emily Friedman, the Allen and Kelli Questrom Assistant Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Dallas Museum of Art.

A series of exhibitions by Brand X collaborators including Rashid Johnson and Joel Mesler will be shown at the PMA through 2028.

Media Event
A curator-led tour for media will be held on Wednesday, September 10, 2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. Please RSVP at pressroom@philamuseum.org.

Media Contact:
Pressroom, Philadelphia Museum of Art | pressroom@philamuseum.org | 610-996-0493

Exhibition Support
This exhibition was made possible by the Lois G. & Julian A. Brodsky Installation & Exhibition Fund.

All exhibitions at the PMA are underwritten by the Annual Exhibition Fund. Generous support is provided by Andrea Baldeck, M.D.; Julia and David Fleischner; Amy A. Fox and Daniel H. Wheeler; Mrs. Henry F. Harris; Robert Hayes; and Mark W. Strong and Dana Strong

About the Philadelphia Museum of Art
The Philadelphia Museum of Art is a national and international destination for art, but first, we are Philadelphia’s Museum of Art—for all the many diverse communities of the city. Through our collections, exhibitions, events, educational activities, celebrations, and more, the PMA is a storyteller, and we welcome everyone to be part of the story—our doors are wide open. To learn more, visit philamuseum.org.

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