Steamboat Emerald

Price on request. Available by inquiry — contact michael@michaelrosenthalart.com or call 415-552-1010.

Katherine Bradford (American, b. 1942)
Steamboat Emerald
Carborundum print
Approximately 18 × 16 in.
Edition 10/10
Signed by the artist. Unframed.

An emerald steamboat in carborundum — the printmaking technique Bradford uses to push pigment into the surface with painterly weight. The final impression in the edition.

A note on edition size

An edition of ten is, in contemporary printmaking, deliberately small. Most editions today are sized between fifty and two hundred impressions, with commercial lithograph and poster editions sometimes running into the thousands. Editions of ten are reserved for collaborations between artists and master printers who want each impression to retain the rarity — and the per-piece value — of a closely held work. As Bradford's market grows, small editions like this one become progressively harder, and more expensive, to acquire on the secondary market.

Provenance — direct from Oehme Graphics

This impression was produced at Oehme Graphics in Steamboat Springs, Colorado — the master print shop run by Sue Oehme, longtime collaborator with Katherine Bradford and one of the most respected printers working with contemporary American painters today. I acquired the studio's holdings of these editions directly from Sue. The work has not previously circulated on the public market: Oehme Graphics is an active, in-demand studio, and the editions sat with the printer rather than being released to dealers. That is why a print of this caliber — by an artist whose primary market has climbed sharply since these were pulled in 2018 — is still available at original gallery pricing.

A rare opportunity for new collectors to acquire museum-quality work by one of today's most important American painters — at print pricing.

Katherine Bradford's paintings are held in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Hirshhorn Museum, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the Musée d'Art Moderne in Paris, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Dallas Museum of Art, the Portland Museum of Art, the Menil Collection, the Frye Art Museum, and the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, among others. Her primary-market paintings now trade at prices reserved for blue-chip artists. Her prints — produced in tightly limited editions and unique impressions — remain the single most accessible way to bring her work into a private collection.

Current and forthcoming

• Communal Table, solo exhibition at Canada Gallery, New York (2025)
• Katherine Bradford, ICA at MECA, Portland, Maine — March through May 2026
• Solo presentation forthcoming at the Baltimore Museum of Art
• Flying Woman: The Paintings of Katherine Bradford, the artist's first traveling museum survey, organized by the Portland Museum of Art and presented at the Frye Art Museum, Seattle (2022 – 2024)

Awards and honors

• Guggenheim Fellowship
• Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant
• Two awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters
• The Rappaport Prize (2021)

A regular presence in museum programming, Bradford has spoken and been interviewed at the Portland Museum of Art, the Frye Art Museum, MoMA PS1, and the Brooklyn Museum in connection with her exhibitions and her place in contemporary American painting.

Why now

Bradford came to her singular subject — luminous, tender figures of swimmers, ships, superheroes, and divers — late, and her market has accelerated rapidly over the last five years as institutional recognition has caught up to her practice. Editions like the one offered here are typically the first works to leave a collector's wishlist when an artist's primary market climbs.

Every print ships with a Certificate of Authenticity and provenance documentation, direct from the gallery.