Arts and Entertainment

Drawings and prints: The Goodfriends visit the Palmer Museum of Art

Jim Goodfriend looking at prints with art history faculty members, Elizabeth Smith and Charlotte Houghton, and museum director, Jan Muhlert Credit: Stephanie Swindle / Penn StateCreative Commons

On a Friday afternoon in October, art history professors, drawing students and print enthusiasts gathered in the Drs. Albert and Lorraine Kligman Print and Drawing Study Room at the Palmer Museum of Art for the Goodfriends’ annual visit. Jim Goodfriend and his wife, Carol, owners of C & J Goodfriend, drawings and prints, have made an annual trip to Penn State for 12 years, bringing with them works by old masters such as Albrecht Dürer and Rembrandt and by American realists, 19th-century French works and occasionally even a Picasso.

“This is the best day we’ve had at Penn State!” exclaimed Carol Goodfriend. “So many students!”

Paul Chidester, associate professor of art in the Penn State School of Visual Arts, brought his 2-D drawing students to see the table full of different examples of prints and drawings. Many of the students asked questions and even sketched details in their notebooks. Andrew Schulz, associate dean for research in the College of Arts and Architecture and associate professor of art history, as well as several other art history faculty members, were in attendance to browse the wealth of material, including a rare Piranesi proof impression, which the museum decided to purchase for the collection. 

That morning, the Goodfriends enjoyed a visit from Patrick McGrady’s History of Printmaking class. McGrady, Charles V. Hallman Curator and affiliate assistant professor of art history, explained the Goodfriends’ long association with the museum, dating back to the ‘70s, when they made their first print donations. The Goodfriends also have donated a print study collection to the museum for teaching purposes.

“Many prints have gotten rare and expensive, and you have to handle them very carefully,” said Jim Goodfriend, “but that’s not how you learn about them. The purpose of the study collection is to give students prints that they can touch to find out what 17th-century Dutch paper feels like, that they can lift to see the watermarks that appear when they hold them up to the light, that they can turn over to see what is printed or written on the backs of them. Although many of these study prints are damaged in some way and not worth much on the market, they are worth a great deal educationally speaking.”

After 46 years in the business and trips around the country selling prints, the Goodfriends have limited their travel and are now focused on their website store and print fairs in New York City, where they reside.

Jim Goodfriend’s advice to aspiring print collectors was simple: “Find out what you like.” He continued, “Look, and keep looking. Don’t buy on the basis of a name or monetary value. When you can look at one, and say, ‘I’d really like to look at this every day of my life,’ then buy it or as close to it as you can afford.”

A classical music critic and record producer in his earlier years, Goodfriend became interested in prints by doing exactly what he advises. He started by collecting music-themed prints and branched out from there. Now, as dealers, he and his wife offer prints spanning the last 500 years of art history up to the 1950s.

Carol Goodfriend expressed her satisfaction at seeing a new generation taking interest in drawings and prints. Ever the enthusiast, her advice to novices was to “visit the website,” which has a section on how to buy drawings and prints as well as numerous carefully annotated online exhibitions: http://www.drawingsandprints.com

For information about the Palmer Museum of Art’s print study club, visit http://www.palmermuseum.psu.edu/education.html#print%20club.

The Goodfriends will be at the New York Satellite Print Fair at the Bohemian Hall in New York City, Nov. 7–9. For details, visit www.nysatellite-printfair.com.

Last Updated October 17, 2014

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