Phyllis Cohen - Virginia Master Printmaker

Phyllis Cohen, illustrating her “jigsaw puzzle” printing process at the press, 2012 

Photo from Printmakers, Inc. 

I arrived in northern Virginia in the early 1980s, at that time the Torpedo Factory Art Center at the end of King Street, Old Town Alexandria was filled with 80 studios and the Art League School, as it still is today. I had a professional design degree and worked as a designer for the Federal Government. During my free weekends I would venture down to the Torpedo Factory to see what these artists were creating. I remember that there were numerous printmakers and I loved looking at their work.

One such artist was the master printmaker, Phyllis Cohen. As she tells the story from many interviews, Marian Van Landingham, an artist and politician was the ringleader that started the concepts of getting the Torpedo Factory established. She roped in other artists to clean up this 1918 Navy building that was used for making torpedo shell casings and other weapons. Once the art factory was up and running, Ms. Van Landingham reached out to Cohen and another printmaker to set up a Printmaking Workshop at the factory.

Cohen had studied political science at Cornell, worked at the US Labor Department, was a parent and a wife. At one point she was invited by a friend to take an art class at the Smithsonian, it was there she found her true calling, printmaking.  In 1975, along with Barbara Romney and a pioneering group of women printmakers, they founded Printmakers, Inc. The group has changed over the years, as artists from the group have come and gone. In the case of Cohen, you can still find her work at the Torpedo Factory, but she has now retired.

As an artist, if you want to move to the Master Printmaker status, just work at it everyday for 37 years. During her tenure at the Torpedo Factory she perfected the “jigsaw puzzle” methodology. In one article she talked about planning out a print, where she would do the drawing, then using a jigsaw in her laundry room, she cut out the pieces from birch in an interlocking puzzle fashion. Then she would rub paint into the pieces of wood, arrange them, and run the print. In other words, she would simply ink every piece separately, reassemble, and print it.

In the large portfolio print below, Cohen uses seven basic colors to create “Granny Smith and Iris.” In this print she takes a simplified approach to shapes and colors. The colors take on a color-field approach, we know that the three green combined circles are granny smith apples, but there are no stems or shadows. Yet in this print, the vase with irises and apples float on a yellow patterned tablecloth, with a taupe kitchen wall as background.

"Granny Smith and Iris" 

Large Portfolio Print

Signed: Phyllis Cohen

The alignment of the shapes, and colors tells us what each element signifies and our mind fills in the gaps and details. That is how Cohen has used a simple kitchen scene into award-winning art.

Cohen exhibited her work on several notable occasions in the Target Gallery at the Torpedo Factory. Additionally, she had a major show with four of her fellow printmakers at the Ratner Museum in Maryland. She had two solo exhibits, one at the Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell, and one at the Morrison House in Alexandria, VA. Her work appears in both corporate and private collections, including the Library of Congress Print Collection.

Special thanks goes out the Printmakers, Inc. Facebook page for the photograph of Ms. Cohen.

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©2020.  Waller-Yoblonsky Fine Art is a research collaborative, working to track artists that got lost and overlooked due to time, changing styles, race, gender and/or sexual orientation. Our frequent blogs highlight artists and art movements that need renewed attention with improved information for the researcher and art collectors.  The blog was created by Mr. Waller and all written materials were obtained by the Fair Use Section 107, of The Copyright Act.  #waller-yoblonskyblogspot #walleryoblonskyblogspot #phylliscohen  #phylliscohenprintmaker  #phylliscohentorpedofactory