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Crown Point Press Bringing the time-honored medium of etching to the forefront
of contemporary art for sixty years Visitors are welcome at Crown Point Press.

Hours are Monday-Friday 9AM-5PM

Since 1962 artists have been traveling from around the world to work at Crown Point to create etchings. They draw on copper plates which printers ink and print by hand. The gallery, on the premises, exhibits and sells fine art prints, and the bookstore features tools and handmade sketchbooks along with books. The popular Magical Secrets series is published here. Archives of etchings from Crown Point Press are at the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

Ed Ruscha first came to Crown Point Press in 1982 when he created three soft ground etchings: “Roughly 92% Angel, But Ab...
09/23/2026

Ed Ruscha first came to Crown Point Press in 1982 when he created three soft ground etchings: “Roughly 92% Angel, But About 8% Devil,” “Indecision,” and “Metro, Petro, Neuro, Psycho.” He has made prints with the Press consistently ever since.

Ed Ruscha in the Crown Point studio, 1982.

Throughout his career, Ruscha has used words as subject matter. These “non-verbal communications,” as he describes them, are sometimes set against textured backgrounds that act as stage sets or backdrops. “Lonely Highway”, a direct gravure from 2019, is of a billboard with letters written in Ruscha’s iconic font, and running obliquely from left to right. It reads “Gal Chews Same Piece of Gum Since 1970.” The billboard is set against a minimal landscape, with a light blue sky, and a bare, patch of desert. The phrase is reminiscent of another time, when things were simpler; a piece of gum could last a long time, and life was more fun because of it.

Ed Ruscha, Lonely Highway, 2019
Color direct gravure with aquatint.
Image size: 15¼ x 24½”; paper size: 21¼ x 29½”. Edition 40.

“Sign in a Sandstorm,” “Sign in a Rainstorm,”and “Sign in a Mudstorm” are three prints Ruscha created in 2021, following “Lonely Highway.” Their titles play against the words in the signs. “City Limits” is the sign in Sign in a Mudstorm; “Sea Level” is in Sign in a Rainstorm. In each of these three prints, the meaning between the imagery and the title is existential.

Ed Ruscha, Sign in a Sandstorm, 2021
Direct gravure printed in black and brown.
Image size: 23¼ x 19½”; paper size: 28½ x 24½”. Edition 40.

Ed Ruscha, Sign in a Rainstorm, 2021
Direct gravure printed in black and blue.
Image size: 23¼ x 19½”; paper size: 28½ x 24½”. Edition 40.

Ed Ruscha, Sign in a Mudstorm, 2021
Direct gravure printed in black and brown.
Image size: 23¼ x 19½”; paper size: 28½ x 24½”. Edition 40.

In celebration of the artist’s prolific artistic output, we are thrilled to share with you the publication of “Ed Ruscha Catalogue Raisonné of the Books, Prints, and Photographic Editions 1960-2022”. The three-volume set is 480 pages with 30 black-and-white and 752 color images, with text by Siri Engberg. Co-published by Steidl an

Crown Point Press is pleased to present Richard Tuttle and Odili Donald Odita: Language and Pattern, a two-person exhibi...
09/10/2026

Crown Point Press is pleased to present Richard Tuttle and Odili Donald Odita: Language and Pattern, a two-person exhibition on view until October 30, 2026. Both artists use the visual elements of color, scale, line, pattern, and perception to explore how nonrepresentational forms can communicate—Tuttle through invented signs and intimate material gestures, and Odita through color, pattern, cultural memory, and political forces.
 
On view is Richard Tuttle’s portfolio Type, 2003, consisting of 26 etchings that form an invented alphabet. Rather than representing letters, he explores sequence, signs, and communication. Tuttle is intrigued by the pursuit of new forms; in making an alphabet, he thinks beyond the recognizable letters. “One of my discoveries,” he says, is the “correspondence of letters and numbers.” Tuttle’s concept of an alphabet is essentially one of sequence. He began the project by thinking about process and material: the copper plate, the paper, and the tarlatan cloth used by the printers in the first stage of wiping an etching plate. In this series, Tuttle incorporated the cloth into the actual prints, using the chine colle process. He was searching, he said, for “a new plane of consciousness between the paper and the tarlatan.” Tuttle chose the title of the series Typefor the word’s association with printing, but also for its meaning as a model characterizing or foreshadowing other similar things. Tuttle has called the images in this new alphabet “playful.”

Richard Tuttle, Type, 2003. Portfolio of 26 color etchings with tarlatan chine collé. Image size: 3 x 3”; paper size: 13 x 13”. Edition 15.

Odili Donald Odita uses the juxtaposition and repetition of color and geometry as elements to unify space in his paintings and wall installations. He mixes his own color palette, and tries not to use the same color more than once. Shapes are demarcated by straight lines, triangles are elongated and skewed, chevrons run tangentially across a color field. Odita has said, “For me, the abstract is not something that I can say is unreal … for me, abstraction is a means of getting to the real in the most direct way.”
 
Three of the four projects completed b

“I’m not adverse to gorgeousness at all. I just want it to look like it happened without a struggle.” Mary Heilmann (194...
09/01/2026

“I’m not adverse to gorgeousness at all. I just want it to look like it happened without a struggle.”

Mary Heilmann (1940-2026) started “doing things with canvas and paint” in the early 1970s when she first moved to New York from California, because “there was a big vacuum there in which to operate. Painting was alleged to be dead,” she said. More recently, Heilmann has been seen as a pioneer of postmodernism, and she got lots of rave reviews. “More than any other painter working today,” wrote critic David Pagel, “Mary Heilmann can make a quickly flicked drip, a loosely brushed smudge or a solitary dollop of color seem like a big event.”

Heilmann created 20 etchings during three residencies at the Crown Point Press studio; the first visit was in 1998 and the last in 2017. Her preferred technique was sugar lift and soap ground aquatint. These techniques enhanced her painterly and fluid mark making. As a proof was pulled from the press in 1998, there was a long silence while Heilmann absorbed it. Then she turned with a grin and announced, “21st Century Fox is finished!” “Why the title,” asked Kathan Brown, the founding director of Crown Point. “It’s inspired by a line in a Doors song, ‘she’s a twentieth century fox,’ “ she replied. “It looks like a Formica kitchen, has an element of trailer trash, yet there’s something about the future there, too, don’t you think?” She laughed. “Maybe that will get people to know this art isn’t totally serious!”

Mary Heilmann was one of the greats and a treasured artist at Crown Point. We will miss her.

21st Century Fox, 1998
Color spit bite aquatint with soft ground etching and aquatint. Image size: 29½ x 21½”; paper size: 41¼ x 30½”. Edition 40.

Watch Mary Heilmann in the Crown Point studio in 2017 by clicking on link in bio.

Margot, 1998
Color aquatint with soap ground and spit bite aquatints. Image size: 29½ x 21½”; paper size: 41¼ x 30½”. Edition 40.

Mary Heilmann in the Crown Point studio with master printer Daria Sywulak, Halloween, 1998.

Passage, 2006
Color aquatint with spit bite and sugar lift aquatints and drypoint. Image size: 30 x 22”; paper size: 40 x 30½”. Edition 15.

New Lineup, 2017
Color sugar lift aq

A selection of three paintings by Odili Donald Odita is on view in the Glenn and Virgina Haldan Gallery at the Nevada Mu...
08/06/2026

A selection of three paintings by Odili Donald Odita is on view in the Glenn and Virgina Haldan Gallery at the Nevada Museum of Art through August 16. Odita is the sixth artist featured at the Museum through the Joyner/Giuffrida Visiting Art Program, which “… fosters dialogue around contemporary art through artist residencies, public programs, and exhibitions of newly created work.” The presentation was curated by Apsara DiQuinzo.

Odili Donald Odita (b. 1966, Engu, Nigeria) created fifteen etchings in the Crown Point etching studio over a two-week period in 2022. Odita organized the etchings he completed into three sets: Bliss and Deep, with three prints in each, one set of four prints titled Net, and the remaining four presented as single prints.

Odita uses the juxtaposition and repetition of color and geometry as elements to unify space in his paintings and wall installations. He mixes his own color palette, and tries not to use the same color more than once. Shapes are demarcated by straight lines, triangles are elongated and skewed, chevrons run tangentially across a color field. Odita has said, “For me, the abstract is not something that I can say is unreal … for me, abstraction is a means of getting to the real in the most direct way.”

On view in the Nevada Museum of Art: Odili Donald Odita, North Star, 2024. Acrylic on canvas, 91 x 81 x 1 3/4 inches. Courtesy the artist and David Kordansky Gallery.

Odili Donald Odita, Black on Blue, 2022.
Color aquatint with soft ground etching.
Image size: 17 x 13½”; paper size: 23½ x 19½”. Edition 10. Published by Crown Point Press.

Odili Donald Odita in the Crown Point studio, 2022.

It is summer in the studio, and the printers at Crown Point Press are busy as bees editioning new etchings by Los Angele...
07/22/2026

It is summer in the studio, and the printers at Crown Point Press are busy as bees editioning new etchings by Los Angeles-based artist Laura Owens. Completed in March, 2026, these five prints comprise Owens’ third project at Crown Point, and are also her most complex and engaging to date. Untitled (LO 1190) (shown here) ) includes a colorful grid, mauve cloud shapes, squares of hot pink, and embroidered flowers that drift through netting. The crowded picture plane evokes a summery garden, bright with sunlight, and a spirited chaos. This print and the four others are currently on view in the new Crown Point gallery space until August 28th. Come visit to see the etchings in real life, and frolic in all of their gaiety!

1. An inked plate.
2. Two plates on an inking stand.
3. Senior master printer Emily York pulls a print.
4. Laura Owens, Untitled (LO 1190), 2025. Color spit bite, sugar lift and soap ground aquatints with aquatint, direct-to-plate aquatint and 7-color screenprint. Image size: 16½ x 11”; paper size: 23 x 17”. Edition 12. Image copyright Laura Owens/Courtesy the artist.

“Making art is a kind of conversation.” — Mary HeilmannCreated at Crown Point Press in 2017, Heilmann’s “Lineup” etching...
06/25/2026

“Making art is a kind of conversation.” — Mary Heilmann

Created at Crown Point Press in 2017, Heilmann’s “Lineup” etchings reflect the openness and experimentation that have defined her practice for decades. Through vibrant color, shifting compositions, and an intuitive approach to abstraction, each print feels both playful and deliberate.

Long celebrated for her influence on generations of painters, Heilmann continues to show how abstraction can be bold and full of possibility.



1. Mary Heilmann, “New Lineup” 2017
2. Mary Heilmann and printer Sam Carr-Prindle looking over the final prints in 2017
3. A stack of working proofs for “New Lineup”
4. Two etching plates from the Lineup series in the studio in 2017

Hilary Pecis’ breathtaking solo show, “Love Letters,” is on view at David Kordansky Gallery in Los Angeles. The show wil...
06/12/2026

Hilary Pecis’ breathtaking solo show, “Love Letters,” is on view at David Kordansky Gallery in Los Angeles. The show will be up through June 20th.

Thank you to Zoe Weinberg for the wonderful tour of the exhibition.

1-6. Images from Hilary Pecis’ exhibition, “Love Letters,” at David Kordansky Gallery, with Chris Perez and Zoe Weinberg.

hilary pecis David Kordansky Gallery

From his Los Angeles studio, Ed Ruscha signs the latest editions of his new etching portfolio, “All Fall Down 1–4.”Now o...
06/11/2026

From his Los Angeles studio, Ed Ruscha signs the latest editions of his new etching portfolio, “All Fall Down 1–4.”

Now on view at our new gallery space at 657 Howard Street.



1. Ed Ruscha signing “All Fall Down 1-4” in his studio.
2. Ed Ruscha, “All Fall Down 1-4” on view in the gallery
3. Ed Ruscha in the studio signing

Crown Point Press is excited to participate in Fraenkel Gallery’s summer group exhibition, ‘Slice of the Pie,’ opening t...
05/27/2026

Crown Point Press is excited to participate in Fraenkel Gallery’s summer group exhibition, ‘Slice of the Pie,’ opening tomorrow, Thursday, May 28th. There will be a public reception on Saturday, May 30th, from 3-5pm.

“Fraenkel Gallery presents ‘Slice of the Pie: Fourteen Bay Area Galleries & What Makes Them Different,’ a group exhibition that brings together a vibrant cross-section of some of the Bay Area’s most influential and idiosyncratic art galleries. Featuring work by more than 40 artists, the exhibition illuminates the diverse perspectives and practices that define the region’s rich gallery ecosystem.

The exhibition will be on view through August 15, 2026.

1. Rupy C. Tut, ‘While the Night hides and the Shadow seeks’ 2024
2. Robert Bechtle, ‘Three Houses on Pennsylvania Ave’ 2011
3. Wayne Thiebaud, ‘Pie Case’ 2002

Address

20 Hawthorne Street
San Francisco, CA
94105

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm

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+14159746273

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