GLENN LOWRY: Publisher/printer, Jacob Samuel.
JACOB SAMUEL: I first became aware of Gert and Uwe Tobias and their work through an ad in Art Forum for the exhibition they were having at The Museum of Modern Art. It was unlike anything that I’d ever seen before.
GLENN LOWRY: Upon the occasion of Print/Out, the Museum proposed that Samuel create a new portfolio with his portable studio. Samuel suggested collaborating with the Tobias brothers, artists whose work he’d recently become very excited about. He packed up his portable studio, something he had not done in nearly a decade, and traveled to work with the artists in Cologne.
JACOB SAMUEL: While we were working, Gert brought a number of books for me to see that really have had a strong impact on them.The books were a collection of drawings done by schizophrenic patients, in German mental hospitals in the 1800s.
GLENN LOWRY: The prints and proofs on display here were influenced by these drawings as well as Romanian folk art.
JACOB SAMUEL: They're very traditional prints, but at the same time, they're incredibly fresh. And one of the things that I particularly love about this series of prints is that no two look alike.
GLENN LOWRY: While Jacob Samuel jumped at the chance to work with the Tobias brothers after seeing just some of their work, many of his earlier collaborations developed after many years of study.
JACOB SAMUEL: When I started publishing 26 years ago I really felt I wanted to know the artist’s work really intimately.
I had a little unwritten rule that I would only work with an artist whose work I had studied for ten years so I could understand what they were about, but also add something to their body of work.
But occasionally, I would see some work, and I had a very strong visceral reaction. And that’s the way it was with the Tobias brothers.