On Sunday, March 30, the 2025 edition of the IFPDA Print Fair concluded with presentations from more than 70 galleries, publishers, and print studios from across the U.S., U.K., Canada, Europe, and Africa. Returning to the historic Park Avenue Armory, the Fair offered prints, editions, and drawings ranging from Old and Modern Masters to the ultra-contemporary, with prices from a few hundred dollars to just under $2 million.
Sales were notably strong during the bustling opening night and on closing day, with attendees racing to make acquisitions before the fair closed at 5 PM. Overall attendance increased 45%, with a 57% rise in VIP registrations and queues around the block on opening night, a testimony to the booming market for prints and multiples. More than 21,000 people attended the Fair over four days, including 5,000 visitors on opening night.
“This was hands down our most successful fair by every measure: sales, attendance, and the strength of the booth presentations and programming," said IFPDA Executive Director Jenny Gibbs. “Opening night was spectacular, with our regular VIPs and an influx of new collectors who came to buy. I heard from exhibitors selling classic material—Miró, Chagall—to Gen Z clients who grew up with these names and were excited to acquire them for themselves.”
Across the Fair, works on view challenged the canonical understanding of prints, with cast bronze works, textiles, and an immersive installation by noted artist Mickalene Thomas made up of works on paper and printed matter. Commissioned by the IFPDA, produced by the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation, and organized by Sharon Coplan with production assistance from Two Palms, Thomas’s installation, l'espace entre les deux (2025), greeted visitors upon entering the Fair. Over two rooms, three-dimensional cast pulp paper plants, stacks of books, and light fixtures, alongside screen-printed wallpapers and floors, and some of Thomas’ iconic rhinestones-adorned collages of female subjects—recasting Black women in the role of muses models and nodding to the 1970s African-American magazine “Jet”—created a trompe l’oeilillusion of entering one of the artist’s iconic paintings inspired by domestic interiors.
“The response to Mickalene Thomas’ installation at the IFPDA Print Fair was outstanding!” said Jordan Schnitzer, collector, philanthropist, and founder of the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation. “Working with print publisher Two Palms Press of New York, Mickalene Thomas pushed the envelope and created the most exciting work of art with paper that has ever been produced! Over 5,000 people attended the opening night and, standing with Mickalene, people were overwhelmed by her artistic genius.”
Next year, the IFPDA Print Fair will return to the Park Avenue Armory with new dates: April 9–12, 2026. The IFPDA recently expanded its membership to include drawing dealers. The 2026 fair will bring more unique works on paper, along with a continued focus on prints and editions, reflecting the best of the best, from Old Masters to the ultra-contemporary.
Notable sales included: a major screenprint on canvas by Jean Dubuffet, Site de Mémoire III (1979), for a price reported in the six-figures on the second day of the Fair (Pace Prints); worksranging from $1,200 to $250,000 by Ruth Asawa, Hayley Barker, Katherine Bradford, Marcel Dzama, Nate Lowman, Yayoi Kusama, Donald Judd, Emma McIntyre, Raymond Pettibon, Elizabeth Peyton, Gerhard Richter, Ed Ruscha, Zeinab Saleh, and Josh Smith (David Zwirner); numerous works by Louise Bourgeois, Alyson Shotz, Kiki Smith, Rashid Johnson, Nari Ward, Thomas Schütte and Donald Judd, with prices ranging from $5,000–$140,000 (Carolina Nitsch); major works by Roy Lichtenstein and Richard Serra (Gemini G.E.L. at Joni Moisant Weyl); 12 works including prints by Mel Bochner, Victoria Burge, Vija Celmins, Tara Donovan, Sol LeWitt, Agnes Martin, Sylvia Plimack Mangold, Liliana Porter, Kay Rosen, Lorna Simpson, and Kiki Smith (Krakow Witkin Gallery); a large etching by Grasyon Perry priced at $60–75,000, several etchings from David Hockney’s series Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm (1969) and works by Jonas Wood, George Condo, Rashid Johnson, Jane Hammond as well as a rare 19th-century woodblock print by renowned Swiss artist Félix Vallotton (Galerie Maximillian); prints by George Condo, Henri Matisse, Jane Hammond, and Richard Serra (Berggruen Gallery); multiple sets of prints by Yinka Ilori, plus other prints by Christiane Baumgartner, Yinka Shonibare CBE, and Cornelia Parker (Cristea Roberts Gallery); work by Etel Adnan, Jacqueline de Jong, Sean Scully, Kiki Smith, Donald Judd, Marion Verboom, Jean Dubuffet, Louise Nevelson ranging from $2,000–11,000 (Lelong Editions); a screenprint by Njideka Akunyili Crosby "The Beautyful Ones" May Have Arrived for $50,000, and Seitu Ken Jones' Self Reflection and Front Reflection (a set of two prints) for $3,400 each (Highpoint Center for Printmaking); a $30,000 woodcut by Friedrich Capelari (Hill-Stone); an impression of The Declaration of Independence on parchment-type paper, printed in 1833 for Peter Force in response to his request to the State Department (The Old Print Shop Inc.); a $23,000 portfolio of prints by artists Karen J. Revis, Althea Murphy-Price, LaToya M. Hobbs, Tanekeya W. Harris (Black Women of Print); several editions by Sarah Crowner, and others by Martin Puryear, Stanley Whitney, Charline von Heyl, and Marina Adams (ULAE); works by Katherine Bradford ("Divers"), José Antonio Suárez Londoño ("El Rio" and "Herkimer. Desvelos") and Vija Celmins (“Snowflakes”) ranging from $1,500 to $20,000. (Harlan & Weaver); two impressions of a $10,000 etching by Elizabeth Peyton and one impression of a $5,500 etching by John Currin (The Paris Review); prints by George Condo, Louis Fratino, and Kara Walker (Burnet Editions); works by Edward Hopper and Carol Wax (Childs Gallery).
BNY Wealth—the Fair’s VIP Partner—presented a special exhibition of selections from the BNY Archives and Art Collection, curated by art historian and author Susan Tallman. Reflecting on a letter from Alexander Hamilton to George Washington about “the subject of money”, the exhibition explored the inextricable links between nation, money, and art, striking a conversation between historical and colonial American artifacts and contemporary art. Paradise (1986) a drawing by Ed Ruscha and Flags I and II (1973), a monumental pair of prints by Jasper Johns published by ULAE, were particularly appreciated by visitors, who also marveled at a rare copper plate for engraving an early stock certificate from the Bank of New York, the first publicly traded company connected to the New York Stock Exchange.
The Fair’s programming was well received with a packed house and engaged audiences. Highlights included talks with artists including David Salle, Terry Winters, Christiane Baumgartner, and Mickalene Thomas in conversation with collector Jordan Schnitzer and curators from The Met, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Harvard Art Museums, Milwaukee Art Museum, The Blanton Museum of Art, and The Courtauld Institute of Art.
The 13th annual Richard Hamilton Acquisition Prize was awarded to the Asheville Art Museum, North Carolina. Funded by Champion Scott Partners, the prize awards one museum $10,000 for an acquisition at the IFPDA Print Fair. The Museum allocated its funds to acquire Robert Rauschenberg’s Autobiography (1968) from Josh Pazda Hiram Butler, and Dorothea Rockburne’s W.I.M.P. #2 (1999) from Gemini G.E.L. at Joni Moisant Weyl.
The second edition of the IFPDA Foundation’s Curatorial Travel Grant Program, awardedgrants to curators attending from the Kunsthaus Zürich (Zurich, Switzerland); Hayward Gallery, The Courtauld Institute of Art, and Whitechapel Gallery (London, U.K.); Museum of Fine Arts Leipzig (Leipzig, Germany); Asheville Art Museum (Asheville, NC); Staatliche Schlösser, Gärtenund Kunstsammlungen Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (Schwerin, Germany); California African American Museum (Los Angeles, CA); San Antonio Museum of Art (San Antonio, TX); Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (South Brisbane QLD, Australia); and Worcester Art Museum (Worcester, MA).
Many notable guests attended the Print Fair, including Larry Gagosian, who spent severalhours at the Fair on closing day, major collectors Jordan Schnitzer and Janice Oresman among others, and artists Marilyn Minter, Mickalene Thomas, Lothar Osterburg, Yashua Klos, Polly Apfelbaum, Cavier Coleman, Kiya Kim, Christiane Baumgartner, Kiki Smith, Jamel Robinson, Andrew Raftery, Laura McPhee, Kiya Kim, Judith Solodkin, and Derrick Adams.
Prominent museum curators included Christophe Cherix, formerly Chief Curator of Drawingsand Prints and newly-appointed director of MoMA, Nadine Orenstein, Drew Heinz Curator incharge of Drawings and Prints at The Met, Esther Adler, Curator in the Department of Drawings and Prints at MoMA, Elizabeth Rudy, Carl A. Weyerhaeuser Associate Curator of Prints atHarvard Art Museums, Constance McPhee, Drawings & Prints Curator at The Met, Marjorie Shelley, Senior Conservator at The Met, Catherine Daunt Curator of Modern and Contemporary Prints at the British Museum and Clare Bell, Associate Director of NYPL.
Also attending were independent curator, art advisor and publisher Sharon Coplan, former Armory Show director Nicole Berry, novelist Angela Flournoy, Michael Novak, Artistic Director of Paul Taylor Dance Company, art dealer and curator Maty Sall, multi-hyphenate comedienne actress Tina Fey, and Nolé Marin—well-known as a judge on America’s Next Top Model.
Image credit: Kevin Czopek/BFA, Madison Voelkel/BFA, Rommel Demano/BFA
