Catamount Arts is pleased to present an exhibition of intaglio prints by area artists Bill and Kim Darling, on view in the Rankin Gallery from November 30-January 6, 2017. A selection of work is available for sale.
About the Artists
Passumpsic residents Bill and Kim Darling moved to Vermont from New York City more than thirty years ago and have taught art at St. Johnsbury Academy since the mid-1990s. Together, they founded the printmaking program at the Academy and lead regular student art tours to Italy. They are also co-owners and master printers at Gatto Nero Press and Gallery in St. Johnsbury, where they host exhibitions and teach workshops, as well as create and publish intaglio print editions.
Bill Darling is a life member of Art Students League and juried member of The New Hampshire League of Craftsmen, as well as founder and artistic director of The Intaglio Society. His numerous commissions includes a painting for Shirakawa, Japan and a wood sculpture for St. John’s Catholic Church in St. Johnsbury.
Kim Darling graduated with BFA from Alfred University and MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She also studied at Art Students League in NYC, where she and her husband Bill met, and at Bottega del Buon Fresco, Florence, Italy.
About Gatto Nero
Gatto Nero Press and Gallery, is located on the ground floor of a beautifully restored 1894 building in downtown St. Johnsbury. Home to printing presses for more than a century, the building was the longtime site of Cowles Press commercial print shop and once housed the press for the Caledonian-Record newspaper.
The couple’s affiliation with the Art Students League accounts for the print shop’s historic antique etching press, believed to be used by such prominent members of the Ashcan School as George Bellows, Robert Henri, George Luks and John Sloan, who all taught at the Art Students League while forging a new aesthetic movement of realist paintings and prints portraying urban working class life.
The press was reportedly ordered at the turn of the century by celebrated American printmaker Joseph Pennell, and then passed among his students before ending up at the Art Students League. Eventually falling into disrepair, it was given to Bill Darling by the League’s director to compensate him for work he’d done. Darling repaired the press and when the couple moved from New York City to Vermont, it came with them. The historic press now sits in a corner of Gatto Nero where it is in constant use.
In addition to the art, visitors also enjoy refreshments at The Café at Gatto Nero, co-owned by Florian Rexhepi, and 34 year-old Matthew Laughton, a St. Johnsbury native and longtime barista, who serves gourmet coffee with the help of a shiny new espresso machine that happily co-exists with the historic press the Darlings use to create their intaglio prints.