Welcome to the Printshop!

The Printshop is a unique communal environment where students across SVA can come together and print! Printmaking at SVA is a Fine Arts elective that is open to Undergraduate and Graduate students from all majors. We offer classes in Silkscreen, Lithography, Etching, Woodcut, Letterpress, and Bookmaking. Most classes start from traditional hand-drawn images to make plates and screens and move on to explore the use of digital imaging. We also offer Continuing Education classes for any experience level.

The Printshop is located on the 5th Floor of 133-141 West 21st Street and is open daily from 9:00am to 9:30pm. The Printmaking facilities at SVA consist of four main classrooms — Silkscreen 1, Silkscreen 2, Lithography/Letterpress, and Etching/Woodcut. There is also a plate-making darkroom for photographic processes as well as a computer classroom with scanners and printers for making digital separations.

SVA’s facilities are spacious, well ventilated, and endowed with high-quality equipment, restored supreme functioning presses, and professional grade inks and materials for student use. All supplies provided in class come out of a student lab fee. Students taking Printmaking classes have access outside of class as studio schedules allow. There is also the possibility for students with previous experience in Printmaking to pay an access fee to work independently in the Printshop. 

Developed over hundreds of years, the different Printmaking processes each come with their own qualities and strengths. All of the traditional Printmaking techniques are still in use by artists today and are constantly being rediscovered and updated to include new technologies. While some artists see Printmaking as a direct avenue of expression for their ideas, others combine Printmaking processes with different media, such as, painting, drawing, sculpture, or photography to create their work. The SVA Printshop is here to help you learn these time-honored techniques so that you can enjoy the processes and get creative with print!