About Us

Founded by Deborah Maris Lader in 1989, the Chicago Printmakers Collaborative provides a studio environment for artist-printmakers to pursue their work and to broaden their knowledge of printmaking media. With facilities for intaglio, lithography, relief, monotype, screen print, and photo processes for printmaking, the CPC has served as a studio for more than 100 members from 14 different countries.
While the CPC provides continuing education through classes, workshops, exhibitions, tours, visiting artist lectures and demonstrations, it has also participated in exchange collaborations with similar institutions such as the Hard Ground Printmakers Studio in Cape Town, South Africa, and Open Press Studio in Denver, CO. Exhibitions in the CPC's Workshop Print Gallery have included traditional prints as well as work that challenges the notions of traditional printmaking to expand the boundaries of the medium.

The CPC has also completed four collaborative suites, hosted a workshop on waterless lithography taught by Jeff Sippel (then the Education Director at the Tamarind Institute of Lithography), and published a six-color lithograph by Tony Fitzpatrick entitled "Pinky."
In the spring of 1999, the CPC moved its shop to an expansive studio space in Chicago's Lincoln Square neighborhood. Shortly after the move, Deborah Maris Lader was awarded the Columbia College (Chicago) Paul Berger Arts Entrepreneurship Award honoring the CPC as a forerunner and innovator among arts organizations in Chicago.