Usually you go to a museum to enjoy visual creativity, and the work stays there when you leave. At the 34th annual Fine Print Fair, art lovers could peruse AND purchase their favorites to show on the walls at home.
Sponsored by the Print Club of Cleveland, this year’s Fine Print Fair drew 14 exhibitors from across the United States, plus Ireland. Tables and racks filled the atrium of the Cleveland Museum of Art with fine prints and drawings, from old master to contemporary, as 350 patrons sipped and shopped at the preview.
“You get museum quality art at very reasonable prices, for collectors of all levels,” said Neal Rains, president of the club, as patrons thoughtfully flipped through the tissue-separated artwork, chatting with the gallery masters.
Offerings ranged from the 15th-century collection of the Davidson Galleries of Seattle to “Medusae I-IV, 2018,” a luminescent etching by Dorothy Cross offered by the Stoney Road Press of Dublin. For those on a student budget, art majors from Oberlin College make complimentary lapel buttons from remnants of paper used in the screen print process.
Proceeds from the Fine Print Fair, which was open to the public through the weekend, benefit the Cleveland Museum of Art’s department of prints and drawings, with support from the presenting
sponsor Key Private Bank.
The Print Club of Cleveland started with a couple of collectors at the Union Club in 1919, according to Rains. “This is our 99th year,” he said. And for next year’s centennial? “We have a lot of plans!” STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY PEGGY TURBETT

Jon Eckel of Dolan Maxwell, Philadelphia, PA, left, observes as Renee Holcomb, vice president, The Print Club of Cleveland, and senior vice president at presenting sponsor Key Private Bank, discusses a print with Cindi Ferrini, center, and Kathleen Zion.

Bill Griswold, director and president, Cleveland Museum of Art, with Emily Peters, curator of prints and drawings, and Neal Rains, president, The Print Club of Cleveland.

Andrea Vazquez de Arthur, Britany Salsbury and Samantha Mishne
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