Lou Stovall working at his drawing table at Workshop Inc., Dupont Center, 1969. | Courtesy Lou Stovall Workshop
LOU STOVALL’S WORKSHOP INC., was a thriving creative enterprise for half a century. Two years after he graduated from Howard University, Stovall established the silkscreen studio in Washington, D.C. The year was 1968. Initially, he produced community posters promoting political and social causes, cultural events and jazz concerts, often partnering with artist and musician Lloyd McNeill. Eventually, Stovall specialized in fine art prints, collaborating with Jacob Lawrence, Sam Gilliam, Washington Color School figures, and dozens of other artists.
Stovall made 21 prints with Gilliam, his good friend, and 22 with Lawrence, including his celebrated 15-part “Life of Toussaint L’Ouverture” series (1986–97), which captures the life of the leader of the Haitian Revolution. He collaborated on six prints with Gene Davis, three with David C. Driskell, and two each with Elizabeth Catlett and Lois Mailou Jones. Peter Blume’s “Autumn” (1988), a liminal image that bridges interior and exterior spaces with a large picture window, features 121 colors, each printed individually. He also printed his own work, a series of poetic landscapes, floral portraits, and dynamic abstractions. Stovall took on hundreds of projects over the years that he completed with support from a cast of assistants who helped produce artworks and manage the workshop.
After Stovall died on March 3, I reached out to several of his former assistants seeking brief remembrances and reflections of their time working with and learning from the master printer. Despite my request for brevity, to a person, they submitted essays of various lengths, rather than a few sentences. For each, the years spent working with Stovall were formative, all-consuming experiences, far too meaningful to collapse into a short paragraph.
They spoke of his love of color; his invention, experimentation, and technical precision; and his rigorous work ethic. They also recalled Stovall’s warmth and generosity, how giving he was of his time and knowledge, and his infectious sense of humor, connection to nature, and love of music, particularly jazz and opera.
“Lou was my mentor and also my friend. Because of Lou, I have a deep-seated love of process that finds its way into my work to this day,” Chris Hambrick said. “I will forever cherish the attention to detail that I learned at Lou’s hand.” John Jacobson, who described Stovall as “one of the best silkscreen artists in the world” said: “The rules of Workshop Inc., were that Lou would teach anyone who wanted to learn, as long as they agreed to stay around to teach someone else. I have taken that to heart and I am trying to stay around as long as I can to pass on his good, good help.”
The memories shared by Hambrick, Jacobsen, Dominique (Niki) Rockwell, Lisa Farrell, and Anne C. Smith span decades, documenting Stovall’s leadership and mentorship and the activities of a history-making silkscreen studio. Their thoughtful contributions are featured below, beginning with recollections from Rockwell who started working with Stovall in 1968, shortly after Workshop Inc., was founded:
Lou Stovall working on a screenprint at Workshop Inc. | Courtesy Lou Stovall Workshop
Dominique (Niki) Rockwell Workshop Inc., 1968-71
Retired Public School Teacher, Boston, Mass.
I MET LLOYD MCNEILL IN 1968 when interning at The Washington Gallery of Modern Art under the direction of Walter Hopps. I was attending Bennington College at the time, and this was my Non Resident Term (NRT). The show “Intercourse 68” was in full swing, and I worked there through the transition to the Frank Stella show. When I returned to Bennington, Lloyd rode up on his motorcycle to give a presentation, and he mentioned my possibly working with Lou Stovall for my next NRT. I never had an interview. Not even a phone conversation. I just moved down to live in my aunt’s house in Northwest D.C., and walked down to the three-story building on M Street that housed a massive printing operation on two floors, I believe, with Lou’s silkscreen studio above.
I climbed the stairs and entered a large room with a desk, metal drying racks, and the largest silkscreen I’d ever seen. Lou was applying stencil gel to the screen. His neatly pressed, button up shirt was tucked into equally sharp pressed pants, always with a belt. His shoes were soft leather with a gum sole which helped when working on a cement floor for long hours.
He was a bit shorter than me with a beard and mustache, and the most mischievous eyes. He loved a good prank and played many of them. An example was, when we’d moved close to Dupont Circle, he sent me to purchase an item at “Payopoleze” drug store as he pronounced it. When I returned, I questioned him, saying wasn’t it really called Peoples? He shook his head saying, “No, it’s owned by Greeks and it’s pronounced Payopoleze.” I believed him. He and Lloyd had many more laughs pulling my gullible leg over the years I worked with them.
Lou was a fun-loving man, but he was also such a hard worker, as close to a perfectionist as a human can be. We worked long hours when the weather was right, as the laying of one color next to or over another needed exactly the same weather conditions to work. We might work close to 24 hours, if the weather was predicted to change soon. Read More
The screen was light due to weights that Lou designed. There was room for a stack of paper to the right under the screen. Lou would pull one sheet and slide it into an L-shaped piece of cardboard taped down. He’d push the screen down and drag the squeegee across. Lifting the screen, one of us with a taped finger, would whip the sheet out and lay it on a drying rack. To assist, one had to be fast. Lou hated to break his rhythm.
We did a lot of Lloyd’s poster designs. One I remember clearly was “Feed Kids” for the Peace Corps. It became highly desirable, as Lloyd’s elongated, boldly, multi-colored, tissue paper people matched the large letters at the bottom designed by Lou. It took more than a year for the government to pay Lou and we were financially stretched for months.
From left, LLOYD MCNEILL, LOU STOVALL, “Feed Kids,” 1969 (screenprint, 35 x 23 inches / 88.9 x 58.4 cm). | Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1970.29; and LLOYD MCNEILL, LOU STOVALL, “Miles Davis,” 1968 (silkscreen poster, 35 x 23 inches). | Printed by Lou Stovall, Workshop Inc. (2)
I think I passed Lou’s test for joining his close team. I could return, he said, if I enrolled in American University part time while I worked with him. Perhaps he was concerned my parents (neither of whom graduated from college) would be upset with my leaving Bennington. By early summer I was back, but by then Lou had moved to the building where the Washington Gallery was to set up the Dupont Center, an annex of the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Walter Hopps had moved to the Corcoran to be its curator.
Lou’s idea for The Workshop at the Dupont Center was to have people enter and witness art in action. He envisioned a dynamic space. Just off from the large design board and silkscreen itself, there was an entry room where Lou made smaller units to silk screen on. I had my own design board there and often made stencils for posters—not fine art prints. I taught people off the street and in particular kids who would not go to school. I can’t remember the name of the program, but it was successful.
By this time Di Bagley (a part-time student at the Corcoran College of Art and Design) had returned from her home state of Georgia and was a gentle, hardworking presence. There were several more people who came and left: Rachelle Hudson and Richard Jester, to name a few.
Lou was incredibly generous. He took us to hear music, Roberta Flack and Percy Heath at Mr. Henry’s. He took us out to eat at least half the days of the week, especially if we were working very late. Lou was a voracious music lover. We all piled into cars and went to Baltimore to hear Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. Music always bellowed out of his radio. I remember him dancing around to “Honey. Oh sugar, sugar. You are my candy girl, and you got me wanting you.”
In the three years I worked with Lou, I can barely remember a day off. He was a part of everything. At the Workshop we had musicians in and out on weekends for concerts: Archie Shepp, I particularly remember, and the Doobie Brothers stayed in the basement for a while and repainted the gallery’s walls.
Lou and Di got married at a friend’s home. A guitarist played “Your Song” by Elton John: “I’d buy a big house where we both could live.” Well, Lou, you did that and so very much more. You created a community of which many of us were fortunate enough to be members. I hope you knew how much you meant to all of us. — D.R.
“The screen was light due to weights that Lou designed.… He’d push the screen down and drag the squeegee across. Lifting the screen, one of us with a taped finger, would whip the sheet out and lay it on a drying rack. To assist, one had to be fast. Lou hated to break his rhythm.”
— Dominique (Niki) Rockwell
Lou and Di (Bagley) Stovall print posters promoting Robert Flack Day at Workshop Inc., Dupont Center, 1972. Washington, D.C.’s first annual Human Kindness Day (1972-75) paid tribute to Roberta Flack, a graduate of Howard University. | Courtesy Lou Stovall Workshop
John Jacobsen Workshop Inc., 1980-84
Writer/Film and TV Director, Seattle, Wash.
WE LOST ONE OF THE BEST SILKSCREEN ARTISTS in the world in early March; but for me, I lost a great friend and a man who really worked hard at mentoring me for years. What does a great mentor do? The great mentor helps us see the hope within ourselves. Lou Stovall did that for me. Truthfully, my dad (who died two years ago, almost on the same day) did, too, showing me I could be anything I wanted to be, but sometimes it takes someone outside your immediate circle and outside your family to believe in you.
“If you have a good thing and keep it to yourself,” Lou has said, “You will have to live knowing that you purposely gave up the opportunity to help someone, and what else is life supposed to be but helping others?” That sentiment has defined everything I do.
He built a new studio full of glass in his beautiful forest of a backyard in Washington’s Cleveland Park neighborhood that housed multiple, eight-foot silkscreen beds with large racks next to them to dry the freshly printed art. He installed the best stereo system with the biggest speakers I had ever heard, which played Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Quartet and Dave Brubeck, and Roberta Flack, Lou’s friend who often visited while I was there.
He hung not only his inspirational art on all the walls, which also hangs in numerous public and private collections throughout the world, but also the prints of Jacob Lawrence, Joseph Albers, Sam Gilliam, Alexander Calder, Gene Davis, and Grandma Moses, all whom hired him to create prints from their original art.
Interspersed with those masterpieces of silk screening were the album covers of his favorite musicians, and there were so many they covered not only any open space on the walls, but also they completely covered the ceiling as well. Where the floor met the wall rested framed photographs of trees, or the roots of trees, which fascinated Lou, maybe because he gave so may young artists roots, and on the desks he’d sneak in poems and essays and books of his favorite writers. Read More
In this spiritual space, this CASTLE of art, I learned to print. I had silkscreened in college working under another mentor, Tom Ziegler, but Lou invited me to assist him as he printed for some of America’s great artists and of course his own brilliant art. Almost everyday for several years, I drew and painted and printed late into the night. And I watched and listened to Lou.
I learned the importance of craft and art. “God lies in the details” was the adage when we worked, and Lou was a very precise and demanding craftsman and artist.
LOU STOVALL, “An Exanthema of Clouds,” 1974 (silkscreen print, 26 x 26 inches). | Printed by Lou Stovall, Workshop Inc.
“It’s not enough to just want to be an artist, you have to know how to be one,” was a phrase that always stayed with me. He taught me discipline, attention to detail, hard work and that a good painter must have the deep thoughts of a thinker but the talent and courage of an artist. If a painter has no deep thoughts, what he or she draws are only meaningless signatures, not the essence of civilization. And that is what the artist, no matter the medium, is always trying to reflect, his or her times.
Lou taught me that while mastering craft is essential, the key to all great art is the artist’s mind. Some artists only seek quick success and instant benefits, producing large amounts of art quickly, but this will rarely create great and true art because their work lacks that depth and authenticity that only comes with profound exploration of the self and sincere empathy for others. These quick-shot artists only pretend to be profound.
Life is the root of art, and a painter must do art based on daily life, empathic to what surrounds him, and commenting on it. If the painter only sits in the studio without experiencing life or others, then he or she is divorcing him or herself from reality, and inspiration.
When we walk in nature, we can feel the beauty of every stone, tree, grass and dew. The March flowers, May rice fields, August clouds and December snow are as beautiful as a child’s hand. To discover the beauty of life and nature, we do not need to go deep into the woods or to remote places, only to watch the green leaves on the street, a stream in the suburbs, the shining sun and drifting clouds in the sky, and even a thriving market or busy crowds on the street. Beauty is everywhere—everywhere—but only if one wants to see it.
Lou and I would go on long walks, where he’d share these thoughts on what makes art, because he was so passionate about it. And then sometimes we’d play chess. We’d play chess for sometimes two or three nights in a row without ever going to bed after we all finished our work in that glorious studio where I was so happy. It was simply the best life, and I am so grateful Lou gave it to me.
The rules of Workshop Inc., were that Lou would teach anyone who wanted to learn, as long as they agreed to stay around to teach someone else. I have taken that to heart and I am trying to stay around as long as I can to pass on his good, good help. — J.J.
“In this spiritual space, this CASTLE of art, I learned to print.… Lou invited me to assist him as he printed for some of America’s great artists and of course his own brilliant art. Almost everyday for several years, I drew and painted and printed late into the night. And I watched and listened to Lou.” — John Jacobsen
Lou Stovall looks on as his mentor and former Howard University professor, artist James Lesesne Wells (1902-1993), signs a color screenprint Stovall produced of “Still Life with Violin” (1987) by Wells, an edition of 99. Studio assistant Lisa Farrell is in the foreground with her back to the camera, with an unidentified woman between Wells and Stovall at Workshop Inc., in Cleveland Park, 1987. | Courtesy Lou Stovall Workshop
Lisa Farrell Workshop Inc., 1985-89
Graphic Artist, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
IN 1984, I MOVED WITH MY BEST FRIEND to Washington, D.C. I was raised in New Jersey and after graduating from Carnegie-Mellon, I tried to start a career in New York City. Even with my father’s help—he was a stockbroker—it was hard. For me, D.C. was a smaller scaled New York City, just as vibrant, but leafier and greener—an international city with lots of museums, arts and culture, and a thriving visual arts community.
I found it was a good fit for me and I had a few college friends working here already. I was a young artist eager to make connections in the art community in D.C. I was not exactly sure what career opportunities were available for artists other than commercial work in an ad agency or what was then called mechanical paste-up for a publication (replaced later by desktop publishing). Everything fell into place after I met Mr. Washington, D.C., himself, the artist Lou Stovall.
I found a part-time job at the Art Barn, a public gallery run by the National Park Service in Rock Creek Park. The Art Barn supported many local artists by employing them to teach art, with kids assisting who had been hired through a grant program of Mayor Marion Barry’s Youth Summer Jobs Program. I was a gallery sitter and artist assistant, and then an art installer and helper with the monthly poetry-reading series.
One day an art consultant stopped by asking if anyone was interested in managing/gallery sitting the entire run of an exhibition downtown at the old Foundry Gallery on Indiana Avenue, NW, organized by Lou Stovall. I jumped at the opportunity. I learned from day one that Lou was the most important, influential, and well-respected artist in D.C. Lou was the granddaddy and the biggest blessing to everything happening in the D.C. arts and culture scene, social justice causes, and politics.
Lou, the “Boss of D.C.,” visited the exhibit many times during its run, wearing his signature Stetson hat, often with the artist Nathaniel Miller. Lou brought with him just about the entire D.C. community of artists, collectors, and influential people. He talked to me about collecting art and I bought my first piece, a pencil drawing by Nate from his exhibit. At the end of the exhibit Lou urged me to keep in touch, and I knew he meant it, so I did. Read More
I contacted Lou a short time later to inquire if he needed help in his studio or could he help me with any leads on finding a job. His studio was set with staff and helpers, so he introduced me to friends who owned a custom offset printing shop, and they hired me as a typesetter/graphic designer in their fast-paced commercial printing shop on Wisconsin Ave, NW. I was typesetting and designing with another artist recommended by Lou.
During that time, I worked on some layouts brought to the shop by Lou’s primary, full-time assistant, who came in frequently with design jobs from Lou. I remember thinking to myself that I would love to have her job. Sometime later, she needed to move away to help with family concerns and Lou hired me. I enjoyed the work so much in Lou’s studio. If I could have, I would have worked 24/7. Everything about the work was so exciting. Lou taught me everything I needed to know about how to make a living as an artist. It was the greatest opportunity of my life.
From left, LLOYD MCNEILL, LOU STOVALL, “Excellence in Education – Charles Cassel,” 1968 (multiple color silkscreen on paper, 35 x 23 inches). ; and LLOYD MCNEILL, LOU STOVALL, “Roberta Flack – The New Thing,”
1967 (multiple color silkscreen on paper, 17 x 11 inches). | Printed by Lou Stovall, Workshop Inc. (2)
My Dream Job
In addition to selling his own prints and drawings, part of the services Lou offered at Workshop Inc., was that he guided his clients on what to collect and facilitated the purchase directly from the artist and we custom-framed and installed each piece. We went everywhere installing this beautiful art, and I met the most amazing, historic people from D.C.’s legacy through Lou: We installed art in the office of then-Mayor Marion Barry, the homes of Mr. Vernon Jordan, Mr. Carl Rowan, Mr. Charles Cassell, Mr. Sam Gilliam, and neighbor Mrs. Marian Wright Edelman, to highlight just a few of his amazing friends and clients.
Lou shared with me the calculation of setting yearly income goals for his art studio; the nuts and bolts of expenses and generating income to sustain a family and business. It was a combination of art sales (his own work and that of other artists) and art services. Lou worked harder than anyone I’ve ever met. It was not just his own income that concerned him, it was a priority for Lou to make sure that artists in D.C. would make a living as well.
He knew and advocated that the way to support artists was to purchase their work. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of artists that Lou supported by selling their work or placing them in important collections. Most importantly, Lou also encouraged friends who had the means to purchase work from D.C. artists. He consistently repeated this important point in most talks he was asked to present about his own success as an artist.
I worked for five years as Lou’s first assistant. Lou was an amazing designer and problem solver. He could build anything, precisely, and in tight-space-tolerance situations. I assisted Lou with building and installing custom-made furniture for many private residences and select law firms in D.C. Lou taught me archival, museum-quality picture framing. He designed and made his own picture frame-molding.
Lou was strict in protecting his peace of mind and his work environment. He was extremely generous with his time and mentoring, but studio visits were by appointment only. He answered every phone call, and you could always reach him when needed. The exception was during the print run. Because Lou was so reliable as a friend, I have kept him as my emergency contact all my years at the National Gallery of Art (NGA), until just recently.
Detail of Lou Stovall using his brushed stencil technique in 1975. | Courtesy Will Stovall
Master of Color
In silkscreen printing, Lou was an absolute master of color. He printed his layers of color with an economy and a designed intention toward building a rich interaction of ink over ink, using his knowledge of color science and glazing, overlapping each printing of each passing of ink layer on paper into the rich build up of color animating the forms he printed.
From the first passing of ink on the paper, Lou knew exactly how to mix a color for brilliance to set the first printed stencil as the base coat; he knew how much ink would be absorbed by the paper, and how that first base coat would settle in to the composition and contribute to the building of up of sometimes as many as 120 printed passes of color in some editions. And he knew in advance how much of the image of the first stencils in the ink lay down would remain visible until the last passage of the final ink layer.
Lou printed with the tightest registration I have seen or studied in any other printer’s screenprints. There is barely an overlap of the stencils. There was no built-in tolerance in the stencil to accommodate for a bad pull; it was not needed, because in Lou’s case there were no bad pulls. Lou’s rhythm when printing was a beautiful thing to behold—he had the strength, power and control to hand-pull a large pool of ink with a big squeegee (24 inches) in movements across the printing screen in repetitions in the 100s, and was precise in every pull and flood coat.
“Lou printed with the tightest registration I have seen or studied in any other printer’s screenprints. There is barely an overlap of the stencils. There was no built-in tolerance in the stencil to accommodate for a bad pull; it was not needed, because in Lou’s case there were no bad pulls.”
— Lisa Farrell
Lou was able to bring to life the illusion of any type of drawn or painted mark-making by creating stencils using hand-cut film, and hand-painted screen filler, directly on the screen. About this Lou would say, “Anything can be reduced to a line or dot.” When I first started working with Lou, he printed on silk and was incredibly inventive in stencil-making techniques on this fabric, understanding its qualities and working with them to produce stencils types never made before by hand in silkscreen printmaking.
Lou shared all his knowledge and taught it, too. He lived by his motto, which was something like, “If I can teach someone to do the work better than me, then I’ve done my job.” Being around Lou was about teaching, sharing, generosity, and most importantly service to community. For Lou, community was serving each of Workshop’s neighbors and their families, especially the children on Newark Street, NW, and the surrounding blocks, all the residents of Cleveland Park, and everyone he could reach in the District of Columbia’s schools, churches, youth services, community centers, libraries, businesses. Basically the entire community of the District of Columbia was touched by Lou.
Lou Stovall at work with a portrait of James A. Porter, his Howard University professor and mentor hanging on the wall behind him at right, at Workshop Inc., Cleveland Park Studio. | Courtesy Lou Stovall Workshop
Respect for His Elders
He had a great respect for his elders and his teachers. Lou spoke often of his mentor Mr. James Porter. He had Mr. Porter’s picture on his studio wall. Mr. Porter was the reason Lou chose Howard University when he was able to return to college studies after pausing his education at the Rhode Island School of Design, departing school briefly to help the family financially after his father’s death.
During my time at the Workshop, we regularly interacted with Dr. David Driskell, Mr. James Lesesne Wells, Ms. Lois Mailou Jones, and all of Lou’s teachers, mentors, heroes, and friends from Howard University. There was a great respect and much admiration with artists and classmates such as artist Sylvia Snowden; lifelong friend and collaborator Lloyd McNeill, an artist and musician; painter Sam Gilliam; and Andrew White, a musician and music scholar. All were constants in Lou’s life.
“During my time at the Workshop, we regularly interacted with Dr. David Driskell, Mr. James Lesesne Wells, Ms. Lois Mailou Jones, and all of Lou’s teachers, mentors, heroes, and friends from Howard University.”
— Lisa Farrell
In the early days, Lou wore a necktie and was dressed neatly while working in the studio and screenprinting. The medium was considered by some to be messy, and Lou showed that his precise approach never allowed for a drop of ink to be spilled, and there was never any ink on his hands. The production process was always clean, neat and tight in Lou’s Workshop.
In 1986, it was an amazing experience to observe the process of Lou negotiating a contract with a publisher, The Amistad Research Center, in association with Spradling Ames. The project was a collaboration with Lawrence to translate 41 of his intimate tempera paintings from The Life of Toussaint L’Ouverture series into 15 editions of silkscreened prints (1986-97), revisiting the work under the direction of Lawrence. I was fortunate to assist on the first five of 15 screenprints in the series: “The Birth of Toussaint,” “General Toussaint,” “The Capture,” “To Preserve Their Freedom,” and “Toussaint at Ennery.”
I had the incredible honor of meeting with Jacob in his home/studio. Lou flew me to Seattle with a proof for Jacob to mark up with his drawn additions, and for me to record comments from the artist and his reflections on the progress of the print and thoughts on the work moving forward.
Another highlight was traveling with Lou in 1988 to the home and studio of the artist Peter Blume in rural Connecticut. We were working on an edition of prints made after his 1984 oil painting “Autumn,” commissioned by Terry Ditenfass. During that print run, Lou printed the most colors ever for him, 121 a record, and an enormous challenge for an edition of 99-plus proofs and on a large printing area at 24 x 26 inches.
Lou taught me his techniques for hand-cutting film stencils—using the now vintage Ulano swivel knife—and he allowed me to cut many of the important stencils including the small details of the faces of the two figures in the composition, raking the fallen golden leaves. A funny thing happened; I cut a delicate stencil for the faces, and I was very proud of the accomplishment of such a small knife-cut detail.
After Lou adhered the film to the screen and proofed it a few times, he dissolved the stencil from the screen and he asked me to cut it again, directing me with new instruction for adding more to the next stencil. I told him I was afraid I would not be able to repeat this great work again on the stencil a second time. He reassured me that he knew that I could do it well again, to just take my time—and sure enough he gave me the confidence to do the job again well.
This was a special time for me at Workshop when Lou also hired my older brother John (Jay) Farrell to work on this print with us. Jay was finishing law school at American University. Lou taught all his assistants to mix the colors for the print runs, but my brother Jay was the only person that I knew of, who Lou allowed to pull the squeegee on the print run of the entire edition. Lou taught my brother, a weightlifter/law student, who was incredibly strong like Lou, to pull an edition of 99-plus proofs using a large two-foot squeegee, consistently on the entire edition with perfect technique.
Lou built his own eight-foot custom printing table. Rather than using the traditional wire system to counterbalance the screen while keeping it in the up position—during the brief time between taking the wet print out from the printing position and placing it on the drying rack, then inserting the next sheet of the edition into position to be printed—he attached weights on an armature to each side of the screen frame as a counterbalance. I wish his screen table had been collected by the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, it’s as valuable as Julia Childs kitchen exhibited there.
Lou had an amazing music collection in his studio, and it was a huge part of his life. He enjoyed teaching his staff and visitors to the studio about music (all types) as much as he liked to share the behind-the-scenes knowledge of his studio practice. This was especially true of his love of opera. Many of his assistants were treated to an opera in the box he shared at the Kennedy Center’s Opera House with friend Ann Brown or to Washington Concert Opera at the Lisner Auditorium, when Lou would purchase up to a dozen tickets to treat his friends and to support the performers.
“Lou built his own eight-foot custom printing table.… I wish his screen table had been collected by the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, it’s as valuable as Julia Childs kitchen exhibited there.”
— Lisa Farrell
Supporting Artists
In 2002, the primary reason Lou devoted so much of his time to personally making the Party Animals project a success while he was serving as vice chair of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, was to support artists. He wanted to fill the need for artists to be paid for their work and bring the community of D.C. artists together to work and interact in a shared temporary working space/studio.
For the citywide public art project, 100 artists were commissioned to decorate 4.5 x 5-foot-long sculptures of either a Democratic donkey or a Republican elephant, to be displayed around Washington for four months. Afterward, the project concluded with an auction benefitting the arts commission. Only Lou could have pulled this off for D.C.
Another part of working for the sake of artists in D.C., were his efforts toward and commitment to forming important collections of D.C. artists for notable local law firms. Lou recommended paintings, works on paper, and sculpture to form these historic collections. Because of this, many D.C. attorneys were personally inspired to collect from local artists, through Lou, after seeing the collections grow at their firms.
Lou custom-designed and executed the framing treatment for all the work, and was brilliant at installing the art to fit their spaces. Lou showed restraint in presentation, always showing full respect to the art and the artist.
I have heard that the part of Lou’s printmaking career devoted to editioning prints for artists described as being “reproductive.” This could not be further from reality and does not effectively represent what Lou’s process consists of when working with artists invited to his studio.
I can state from first-hand knowledge that there is really nothing reproductive about his process. I was amazed each time when I observed what the artists brought to the studio as the starting point/concept for a new work versus what the collaboration with Lou produced at the end. I can think of three such projects, print editions commissioned to be made in the spirit of oil paintings by the artists: Peter Blume’s “Autumn” (1984); “Still Life with Violin” (1987) by James Lesesne Wells; and “A Shady Nook: Le Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris (1991) by Lois Mailou Jones. All three were made in collaboration with living artists who contributed to the process with Lou in making a new work in the spirit of their original, not reproducing it.
“I can state from first-hand knowledge that there is really nothing reproductive about his process. I was amazed each time when I observed what the artists brought to the studio as the starting point/concept for a new work versus what the collaboration with Lou produced at the end.”
— Lisa Farrell
Poised for Success
When the time came for me to move on from Lou’s studio to the next step in my career, I departed with all the skills needed to do just about anything to make a living in the art world. I had complete confidence in my abilities, all thanks to Lou.
I was performing some freelance studio-assistant work for artists I met through Lou: Willem De Looper and the estate of Gene Davis, working for his widow Flo in their D.C., home and studio. Hoping for full time employment, somehow I was able to reach a hiring official in the personnel office at the National Gallery of Art. I explained that I was an artist with expertise in planning for the display of art, possessed skill and care in handling works of art, had knowledge of the care and conservation of works of art, familiarity with museum registration systems, expertise in silkscreen printing, great color skills, and was proficient in archival picture framing and carpentry.
I was told the museum had a silkscreen shop and may be hiring a contractor, short-term. I filled a six-month contract position, then one of the co-founders of the silkscreen shop at NGA was retiring and I was fortunate to be hired into the position as exhibit specialist/graphic designer.
Thanks to my intensive training and experience with Lou, I arrived at NGA fully capable for all phases of this specialized work. My career at the NGA is focused on creating presentation graphics for the display of the permanent collection and temporary exhibitions and it involves designing with type, mostly display type on a monumental scale, and we silkscreen it on the walls! I use everything Lou taught me at Workshop in my current position at the museum.
I have always been fascinated with Lou’s invention in designing his personalized letterforms to create an expressive alphabet of his own making and his mastery of hand-cutting the stencils of these letterforms (even on a tiny scale) into designs for 2-D graphic commissions and posters.
The continuity of working with letterforms and color is a through line of my work since my time with Lou. I have further developed a fine appreciation for letter forms and type and understood the impact of their beauty in the right color combinations and was able to translate this knowledge and make it work at a monumental scale. Sometimes the right color is white, and white is always elegant.
Lou Stovall printing “Exanthema of Clouds” (1974) in the living room of his Cleveland Park home, before he converted a garage behind the home into the permanent base of Workshop Inc. | Courtesy Lou Stovall Workshop
Forever Mentor
Thirty-three years later, I still have the black Luskin tape measure Lou gave me while on the job with him at Workshop. He used the same tape measure; it was always on his belt. Lou used gallon cans, painted black, for his screen washing mixture, a combination of two solvents. When I started at NGA, Lou made us a set of black-painted gallon cans for use in our shop. We use the same mixture of solvents, and we still use the gallon cans in our shop.
When I joined the staff at NGA, Lou became a part of the museum’s community, too. He visited the silkscreen shop and the Design Department staff got to know him and formed their own connections to him. When we needed a specialty ink treatment quickly, like metallic, he would lend us his metallic powders. For “Warhol: Headlines” Lou gave his quart of pink, fluorescent screen ink.
“When I joined the staff at NGA, Lou became a part of the museum’s community, too.… When we needed a specialty ink treatment quickly, like metallic, he would lend us his metallic powders. For “Warhol: Headlines” Lou gave his quart of pink, fluorescent screen ink.” — Lisa Farrell
He regularly called our shop and would chat at length with whomever answered. Lou really liked catching up on the phone. He was a guest at our staff Christmas Party in the East Building and invited staff from many NGA departments to visit his studio. He became a fast friend of many at the museum, especially the Education Department and The Center (CASVA). Lou also served on the NGA’s Trustee’s Council for many years creating new connections and relationships for the museum.
One aspect I do miss from Lou’s Workshop that’s not been a feature of my professional work at NGA, is the mentor/apprentice system of showing young people just starting out how to grow, by teaching certain skills and making them aware of the career opportunities for artists in museums. To fill in what was missing for me, it’s been a delight for me to mentor a few young people over the years as volunteers in our silkscreen shop, during their senior year of high school or gap year before college. The experience has provided me the with an invaluable opportunity to “…teach someone to do the work better than me.” — L.F.
“I learned from day one that Lou was the most important, influential, and well-respected artist in D.C. Lou was the granddaddy and the biggest blessing to everything happening in the D.C. arts and culture scene, social justice causes, and politics.” — Lisa Farrell
Chris Hambrick with Lou Stovall, Cleveland Park, Nov. 4, 2016. | Courtesy Chris Hembrick
Chris Hambrick Workshop Inc., 1996-2005
Editor, Podcasts, KQED Radio, San Francisco, Calif.
I MET LOU STOVALL WHEN I WALKED INTO WORKSHOP INC., to interview for a job as his studio assistant. It was 1996 and I was fresh out of art school at Howard University, but had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. He gave me a brief tour, told me “I don’t judge you by how you’ve worked for other people, I judge you by how you work for me,” and we were off.
I worked at the Workshop for the next 10 or so years: full time initially, from 1996 to 1999, and after that part-time on and off between other jobs and opportunities. Do you ever really stop working for Lou? I was in a deep dive on the wonders of process. Every tool had a specific place. Every assistant had a particular part to play in the printing. Every method had specific steps, and for anything we did often, Lou had created a jig to make that work quick and exact. I learned so much, and bathed in the beauty that only with tight controls could we create wonderful art that was identical, each time.
A key part of the printing process was the rhythm. Most days it came through the music in the rack of CDs, cassettes, and LPs that lined one whole wall of the studio. Anyone could play what they wanted, but we all had veto power over the music. If one person had an objection, it had to come off immediately. Everything fell under that rule except Al Green. Lou may have loved classical music, but Al Green was the soundtrack of choice for printing. Green’s Love and Happiness album seemed to be set at the perfect BPM we needed for a studio team of four people to print one color on about 250 prints with clock-like precision.
Lou was my mentor and also my friend. Because of Lou, I have a deep-seated love of process that finds its way into my work to this day. While I miss the music, the laughter (jokes and sarcasm were king), and the food (Lou kept a running mental tally of the best new recipes and restaurants), I will forever cherish the attention to detail that I learned at Lou’s hand. — C.H.
“Every assistant had a particular part to play in the printing. Every method had specific steps, and for anything we did often, Lou had created a jig to make that work quick and exact. I learned so much, and bathed in the beauty that only with tight controls could we create wonderful art that was identical, each time.” — Chris Hambrick
Di and Lou Stovall and David Bronson at Workshop Inc., in Dupont Center in 1970. | Courtesy Lou Stovall Workshop
Anne C. Smith Workshop Inc., 2010-12
Artist, Washington, D.C.
LOU STOVALL WAS SO MANY THINGS TO ME: mentor, teacher, friend, and family. I started working for him as a studio assistant in 2010. I was full time until 2012, and then gradually part time after that until our working relationship evolved into a deep friendship. He, Di, and Will became like family to me, and because of their generous hearts, that love extended to my family—my husband and two young kids—as well. Lou taught me silkscreen printmaking; he taught me about exactitude and craftsmanship in the studio. There was nothing that he couldn’t do or figure out how to do—both in relation to making exquisite work and in relation to cultivating relationships, as he took great kindness and care with friends, acquaintances, and anyone we encountered in our day.
Lou loved color and was in love with the richness of oil-based silkscreen inks. I think that the beauty, ferocity, and intensity that he found in music, especially opera, he also found in the way that he could wield silkscreen colors to interact in thrilling ways on paper. Silkscreen prints are usually made by printing one color at a time (although Lou certainly flaunted that rule in his monoprints to stunning effect). When he taught me silkscreen printmaking and I was struggling to mix the next right color, he advised me that “each color must move the print forward.” It wasn’t enough to choose a color randomly or on a whim, but instead he placed such great weight on creating color that would really say something and do something in the print. Color was paramount, as were paying attention to the edges in a print. And he did after all title one print series, Color Regit, meaning “color rules.”
“Lou loved color and was in love with the richness of oil-based silkscreen inks. I think that the beauty, ferocity, and intensity that he found in music, especially opera, he also found in the way that he could wield silkscreen colors to interact in thrilling ways on paper.” — Anne C. Smith
Lou once described something that he learned from his teacher and mentor James Lesesne Wells at Howard University. It was “the possibility of participation.” I didn’t understand at first. I never thought of “participation” as a very inspiring word. But this was not the first time that I experienced a total shift of perspective and understanding as a result of something Lou said or did. I came to see that “participation” was fundamental to how Lou moved about the world, in his relationships and in his studio. Lou was there for people. He always would go the extra length to do a kindness for a friend or neighbor, or help another artist with a project or supplies. Of course, he participated in big ways, too, through his posters and collaborations, for example. Read More
Participation infused his life and work, and made him an active citizen of the world who so deeply engaged with people, flowers, trees, students, books, and music. He enriched his life through participation and with that philosophy enriched so many other lives, as well. Thanks to Lou, the idea of participation took on the sacredness of a guiding principle to life.
“I came to see that “participation” was fundamental to how Lou moved about the world, in his relationships and in his studio. Lou was there for people. He always would go the extra length to do a kindness for a friend or neighbor, or help another artist with a project or supplies.”
— Anne C. Smith
Much of the joy that Lou shared came simply in our day-to-day goings about. One of my jobs as his assistant was to drive us all over D.C., whether to deliver and install artwork, to accompany writers Lou was hosting as part of the PEN/Faulkner Writers in School program, or just to run an errand down to the little neighborhood grocery store. Wherever we went, Lou seemed to know people, and people would greet him warmly.
As we sailed around town in his ’93 Chevy Caprice Classic, which drove like a boat, Lou would point out places along the way that were part of D.C. history, as told through his experience. Places where the Workshop studio used to be, Bohemian Caverns, the place where he met Di—everywhere had a story, and it brought D.C. alive to me in all its neighborhoods.
Back in the studio, we would listen to all kinds of music, but the music that he played the loudest—the music that would make him stop and sit down and just listen—was opera. Lou taught me so many things over the years about being an artist, about being a citizen and a friend. Now every time I look at his prints or read his poetry, the depth of all his knowledge and celebration of beauty and exquisite detail continues to be revealed to me. I feel like I am still learning from him all the time. — ACM CT
Lou Stovall talks about the artistry of his methods and demonstrates his silkscreen printing process with help from assistants Allison Sheehy and Leah Gilliam, an artist in their own right and Sam Gilliam’s daughter. The short documentary was made on the occasion of “Through Their Eyes: The Art of Lou and Di Stovall” at the Anacostia Community Museum. (Sept. 18, 1983-March 4, 1984). | Video by Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum
FIND MORE Eight artists including Lou Stovall, Sam Gilliam, David Driskell, and Sylvia Snowden were in conversation about African American art in 20th century Washington during a two-day symposium at the National Gallery of Art hosted by The Center in 2017
BOOKSHELF
Recently published, “Of the Land: The Art and Poetry of Lou Stovall” includes the artist’s art, poetry, and a personal narrative about his life and work titled My Story. “Of the Land” is edited by Will Stovall and includes a foreword by National Gallery of Art curator Harry Cooper.An digital exhibition brochure accompanied “Lou Stovall: Of Land and Origins,” the artist’s exhibition at the Georgia Museum of Art. “Beauty Born of Struggle: The Art of Black Washington” is a new volume that documents and expands upon a two-day symposium titled “The African American Art World in Twentieth Century Washington, D.C.” that was organized by the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art (now known as The Center) on March 16-17, 2017. Edited by Jeffrey C. Stewart, the book features a transcript of an historic artist panel with Lou Stovall (1937-2023), Sam Gilliam (1933-2022), David Driskell (1931-2020), Sylvia Snowden, Keith Morrison, Floyd Coleman, Lilian Thomas Burwell, and Martin Puryear that was moderated by Ruth Fine, along with 15 essays by Richard J. Powell, Gwendolyn H. Everett, Lauren Haynes, Elsa Smithgall, Steven Nelson, Jacqueline Serwer, Michael D. Harris (1948-2022), Adrienne Edwards, Robert G. O’Meally, Rhea L. Combs with Paul Gardullo and others, many of which were presented at the symposium.
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Do you enjoy and value Culture Type? Please consider supporting its ongoing production by making a donation. Culture Type is an independent editorial project that requires countless hours and expense to research, report, write, and produce. To help sustain it, make a one-time donation or sign up for a recurring monthly contribution. It only takes a minute. Many Thanks for Your Support.
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