HISTORY
About The Lawrence Lithography Workshop
A Legacy of Collaboration
Lawrence Lithography Workshop History
Michael Sims established The Lawrence Lithography Workshop in 1979 as a contract printing and teaching facility. Based in Lawrence, Kansas, it provided a place where artists with little or no print making experience could collaborate with a master printer to produce original, hand pulled lithographs. The workshop expanded its operation beyond contract printing and increased its emphasis on printing and publishing national and regional artists. TLLW, now located in Kansas City, Missouri, is one of the few privately owned, fine art publishing presses in the Midwest.
Sims received his BS in Art from Western Michigan University (WMU) and MFA in Printmaking from Ohio University. In 1971 he began teaching lithography at the University of Kansas (KU). In 1978, Sims left KU to work as an assistant at Landfall Press in Chicago. He returned to Lawrence the following year with a number of lithographic stones and a small antique Fuchs & Lang press. Those tools, along with the support of area artists and friends, prompted him to set up a workshop at 7 East Seventh Street, where the workshop operated for eighteen years.
The Lawrence Lithography Workshop has collaborated with over 200 artists from across the United States to produce nearly 600 prints and portfolios utilizing multiple processes from the full range of lithographic techniques (traditional stone lithography, plate and photo techniques, mylar films, and more) and an occasional relief print. Each artist print collaboration is unique with an emphasis to provide the best solution that best suits the artists’ hand and concept. A partial artist list includes: Ron Adams, Nick Bubash, Susan Davidoff, Peregrine Honig, Tom Huck, Luis Jiménez, John Newman, Ed Paschke, Zigmunds Priede, Roger Shimomura, Jaune Quick-To-See Smith, Robert Stackhouse, Robert Sudlow, Akio Takamori, Patti Warashina, William Wiley and Andrzej Zielinski.