Magnolia Editions is a fine art print studio in Oakland, California. We provide artists with technical expertise and access to an old-world handmade papermaking facility, etching presses, a powerful automated cutting machine, and large pigment-based electronic printing processes. For over two decades we have worked closely with artists to produce and publish print multiples, unique artist's prints, works on paper and textiles, utilizing both traditional printing methods and the most advanced digital printing and Jacquard weaving techniques.
We have also collaborated extensively with artists on developing large-scale, public commissions. Working with the San Francisco Art Commission, Magnolia was actively involved in realizing works commissioned for the new San Francisco International Airport. Other public commissions in which Magnolia has played an active role include works for the San Francisco Superior Court Building, the Laguna Honda Hospital in San Francisco, the Homart Corporation in Glendale, California, the Cathedral of our Lady of Los Angeles and the San Jose Museum of Art.
Magnolia is particularly notable for its unorthodox editions, often produced by applying digital technology in novel ways. Director Donald Farnsworth has developed an innovative technique for weaving fine art Jacquard tapestries, using the power of digital technology and an ambitious printmaker's perspective to deliver color fidelity and detail levels previously unseen in the time-honored medium of warp and weft. Using Farnsworth's method, Magnolia has published editioned tapestries by many of today's top artists, including Chuck Close, Alex Katz, Hung Liu, Ed Moses, and Leon Golub. One such edition, Self-Portrait/Five Part by Chuck Close, is an enormous, twenty-foot long weaving based on five different daguerreotypes of the artist's face. Tapestries published by Magnolia have been exhibited worldwide at venues including the Whitney Museum of Art and the White Cube Gallery. Dharmakaya, a collaborative tapestry work by Donald and Era Farnsworth, was selected for inclusion in "The Missing Peace: Artists Consider the Dalai Lama," a traveling exhibit seen to date in Oslo, Tokyo, San Francisco, Miami, and Madrid.
After acquiring a large-scale flatbed acrylic printer in 2008, Farnsworth again broke new ground by repurposing this powerful industrial tool to create fine art in a variety of unusual media, from free standing works on panel like William Wiley's Goat with Attire to Deborah Oropallo's large-scale Wild Wild West prints on aircraft-grade aluminum, to mural-size works such as Clare Rojas's Blue Deer, slated for installation at the San Francisco International Airport in December. Farnsworth has also developed a novel method for creating copper photogravure plates using the same printer, bypassing the darkroom and exploding the possibilities of a medium once thought to be all but obsolete.
Other editions recently created at Magnolia include Kali-fornia Dreamin, a suite of wearable button etchings by William Wiley housed in custom leather-bound book boxes (created by close friend of Magnolia, John DeMerritt); Deer Boy, an artist's book pairing imagery by Hung Liu with a poem by Beat legend Michael McClure; Six Shooter, a suite of inkjet prints by Deborah Oropallo inspired by toy cowboy pistols; and Time Can Pass Fast or Slowly, a mixed media edition on amate paper by Enrique Chagoya which depicts an African sculpture feasting on a Picassoesque painter while standing knee-deep in Monet's Giverny gardens. Farnsworth and Magnolia are currently working on an artist's book with Squeak Carnwath and poet John Yau, and a ceramic tile project with Chuck Close which will once again introduce new possibilities to an ancient medium.
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