The Old Print Shop

Alan Petrulis

b. 1954

Alan Petrulis was born in Queens, New York, in 1954.  He came late to the arts, first studying ecology-anthropology at Queens College.  In 1979 he received a MFA in printmaking from Baltimore’s Maryland Institute of Art.  Petrulis became a member of the Society of American Graphic Artists (SAGA) in 1999 and has worked closely with the New York Society of Etchers for many years. He has received a number of awards, most notable the Cannon and Ralph Fabri prizes from the National Academy of Design.  The landscape has been the most common motif occupying the interest of Petrulis for the past thirty years.  His etchings are derived during his walks through New York City, the Hudson Valley, and up along the coast of New England. From this slow and deliberate process of traversing thousands of miles by foot, he has learned to address the landscape as one would a person, becoming aware of its moods and disposition.

Petrulis has work is in the permanent collections of The Brooklyn Museum, NY; New-York Historical Society, NY; Museum of the City of New York, NY;  New York Transit Museum, Brooklyn, NY; The Cahoon Museum, Cotuit, MA; and the Boston  Athenaeum, MA; and many others.
 
“I fell in love with intaglio before I ever even picked up an etcher’s needle.  From the first moment that a fellow student showed me a freshly pulled print, I knew it was something I just had to do.  Home is my anchor from where I wander outward on a line without end.  Walking has become an essential element to my work, for it is within these journeys that my etchings are conceived.  It is not just about searching out a good composition but in having intimate contact with places, to be able to see into the soul of things.  I have heard it said that if a landscape is an instrument then walking through it is a song.” 

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