About Allan

Allan L. Edmunds, 5 decades of studio art, arts administration and art education

Allan L. Edmunds

About Allan

Allan L. Edmunds (Born 1949) is a life-long resident of Philadelphia. He has dedicated his professional life to the creation of art, art education, documentation, and the preservation of contemporary diverse art through the medium of printmaking. His love of printmaking is fostered by Edmunds's attraction to processes and technology and the collaborative nature of the work that advances his desire to make art materially accessible to a wide audience and affordable to others.
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Over five decades Edmunds has served simultaneously as an educator (Public Schools and universities) and arts administrator. He is the founder and president emeritus of the Brandywine Workshop and Archives, the online database of contemporary diverse art Artura.org, and the virtual Institute for Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity in Education and Art. He has served on state art councils, public art committees, and is currently co-chair of the Mayor’s Sub-Committee on Arts, Culture, and The Creative Economy.

Edmunds has lectured widely, written for publications in art education and art history, and through his many activities as a practicing artist-administrator, has built a well-respected legacy that reaches internationally.

Brief Bio

Born in Philadelphia, PA, Allan L. Edmunds is an artist, educator, and arts administrator with more than fifty years of accomplishments in all three areas. A graduate of Tyler School of Art & Architecture; Architecture (BFA, MFA), Temple University in Philadelphia and Rome, Italy, he also studied as an Arts Management Fellow at the Getty Museum Management Institute and was a Senior Research Fellow in printmaking-computer graphics at the South Glamorgan School of Art, Cardif, Wales, UK.
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Edmunds has received the National Endowment for the Arts, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Artists Fellowship Awards, and the New York City Print Center Award for Arts Leadership. He was awarded the Distinguished Alumni Award by Temple University and Edmunds was honored by the International Review of African American Art as one of 25 Who Made A Difference in American Art (25th Anniversary Issue).

As Founder-President Emeritus of the Brandywine Workshop and Archives in Philadelphia (1972-2022), Edmunds built an internationally respected art institution focused on the art of printmaking, established twenty satellite collections across the country and led the development of Artura.org, a free archival database now viewed in all 50 states and 122 countries across the globe.

Artist Statement

My art usually incorporates photographs, primarily from family albums, historical archives, and media arranged as a montage with scale, marks, colors, and spatial arrangements that evoke a sense of movement and time. Subjects reference family/ancestry, African American history, and injustice as a global concern of my art/documentation projects. I embrace a distinctive aesthetic that is truly my own, a visual language reflecting my deep-rooted passion for the medium of printmaking.
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What’s exciting for me is that printmaking has always been at the forefront of innovation in the arts. Technology has led to innovation and printmaking has always required technology and chemistry, so printmakers are always near the forefront. Not at the very front, but we are right there, on the edge of innovation.

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solo and group

Exhibitions

Allan has been exhibiting his artwork since 1973. He has been featured at location 1, location 2, locaton 3 and countless others.
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Selected Exhibitions:

Printing as Prologue: Recent Work by Allan Edmunds, curated by Ruth Fine, Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, PA
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Elegy: Lament in the 20^th Century, curated by Jessica T. Smith and Susan Gray Detweiler, Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA
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Prints of Brandywine Workshop and Archives: Creative Communities, Harvard University Museums, curated by Elizabeth Rudy and Sarah Kianovsky co-curators, Cambridge, MA
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Shifting Time: African American Artists, 2020-2021, curated by Klare Scarborough and Berrisford Boothe

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Artist Statement

Speaking engagements

Visiting Artist / Lecturer / Panelist

Allan has been lecturing as a visiting artist since 1973.

Selected Lectures and Panels:
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Gallery Talk, Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, PA, 2023
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Keynote speaker for Series Project Luncheon, University of Notre Dame, IN, 2014
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Visiting Artist, University of Texas, Austin, Department of African American Studies, TX, 2014
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Panelist, Symposium: Romare Bearden in the Modernist Tradition, Columbia College of Art, Chicago, IL, 2008.‍
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‍Panelist, Symposium on the Art of Romare Bearden, in conjunction with the Romare Bearden retrospective, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 2005.

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Allan Edmunds' Artwork is part of

37 PUBLIC ART COLLECTIONS INCLUDING:

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Allan L. Edmunds

Press + Interviews

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Allan L. Edmunds

Awards + Honors

2023 Art Administrator Award of the Print Center of New York City
2023 Founder's Medal, Philadelphia Sketch Club, PA
2023 Founder’s Award, The Fleisher Art Memorial, Philadelphia, PA
2021 Service to the Arts Award, Arts and Business Council, Philadelphia, PA
2021 Sadie T.M Alexander Award, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. Philadelphia Chapter, PA
1992 International Forum, Drexel University, Philadelphia and Barbados, West Indies, 1992 (held in Barbados)

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Allan L. Edmunds receives Founder's Award at the Fleisher Art Memorial, 2023.

Allan L. Edmunds, 2011, Printshop, Brandywine Workshop & Archives

Board, Organization and committee memberships

Affiliations

Allan has been involved with many arts and culture organizations since the 1970s. He has been featured at location 1, location 2, locaton 3 and countless others. His passion and Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.
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SELECTED AFFILIATIONS:
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2023-Present: Co-Chair, Mayor’s Sub Committee on Arts, Culture, and the Creative Economy, Philadelphia, PA
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1972–2023: Board of Directors, Brandywine Workshop and Archives, Philadelphia, PA,

1991-2004: Committee for the School, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 1991–2004
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1995–96: Advisory Board Member, The Romare H. Bearden Foundation, New York, NY

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Allan L. Edmunds speaking at the Center for Arts and Culture, Tea Time for the Arts

Allan L. Edmunds

Allan's Porfolio

Allan has over 5 decades of studio work, exhibition catalogs and publications,

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