The International Fine Print and Drawings Association’s (IFPDA) annual Print Fair returned to New York’s Park Avenue Armory this April, drawing collectors, dealers, and print enthusiasts from across the globe. With over 80 galleries, standout works, and a newly expanded mandate, this year’s edition signaled a market in confident motion.
Prints have long offered an entry point into serious collecting, and that appeal remains central to the fair’s identity. The comparative affordability of works on paper draws collectors who might otherwise be priced out of paintings or sculpture. Galleries reported a growing wave of buyers in their late twenties through early forties, drawn specifically to prints as a way to acquire work by significant artists at accessible price points.
The booths reflected the full breadth of printmaking history. At the back of the Armory, IFPDA President David Tunick presented Toulouse-Lautrec lithographs that transported visitors to Montmartre, alongside a rare Modigliani from around 1914. Krakow Witkin Gallery anchored its booth with Kiki Smith’s hand-painted watercolor “Wooden Moon,” measuring twelve feet and her largest work to date.
Contemporary work held its own throughout. At Two Palms, a Cecily Brown monoprint, created using an industrial hydraulic press at 600 pounds of pressure, saw two of four available works sell for $62,000 each on opening day. Hauser and Wirth showed William Kentridge’s etching “Refugees (You will find no other seas),” drawn from the tragedy of a refugee shipwreck off the Italian coast. Paula Rego’s abortion etching series at Cristea Roberts Gallery remained one of the fair’s most quietly powerful presences.
One question dominated conversation across booths: how was this made? That curiosity is well served at this particular fair. Tandem Press showed Marie Watt’s luminous text-based work, produced in close collaboration with the studio. Crown Point Press brought a new Laura Owens series combining intaglio, screen-printing, and lithography. Gemini G.E.L. mounted an all-women presentation, tracing a lineage from Vija Celmins’ etchings through Tacita Dean’s solar eclipse screenprints.
The collaborative and often labor-intensive nature of printmaking was visible at every turn, and collectors were paying close attention.
This year marked a notable shift: the fair formally welcomed drawings alongside prints and multiples. Artists and museums have long treated the two disciplines together, making the change a natural evolution. The results were visible throughout the Armory, with unique drawings by Ruth Asawa at Zwirner and one-of-a-kind works by Orit Hofshi at Cade Tompkins Projects sitting comfortably alongside editioned work.
The Louise Bourgeois “Spirals” woodcut series at Carolina Nitsch, priced just under $600,000, was placed on hold by an institution by preview’s end. Even at the most accessible fair in New York’s calendar, some things remain out of reach.
