FRED GENIS — BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
Born 5 January 1934 in Amersfoort, Netherlands.
1947–50 Studied lithographic printing under Coen Hafkamp at the Amsterdam Graphic School. Printed for artists at evening classes.
1951–54 Worked as commercial printer, plate-maker and photo-lithographer.
1954–56 Lived in Rhodesia and worked as a locomotive fireman on the Rhodesian Railways.
1957–59 Returned to Netherlands and worked as commercial printer, plate-maker and photo-lithographer.
1959–64 Migrated to Australia. Worked as a linesman with the PMG and studied music.
End 1964 Returned to Netherlands, continued music studies and worked as a commercial lithographer.
1965 Emigrated to USA and worked as hotel manager in San Francisco.
1966 Migrated to Brazil and settled in Rio de Janeiro. Worked as commercial lithographer.
Mid 1966 Returned to USA and joined Ken Tyler’s newly formed Gemini Ltd lithographic workshop in Los Angeles as a lithographic printer. Printed the White Line Squares series for Josef Albers.
1967 Received a fellowship from Tamarind Los Angeles and printed lithographs for a series of invited artists including William Gropper. Also printed for Hedda Sterne during this fellowship — her Untitled (from Metaphores and Metamorphos III, 1967) is now held by the Nederlands Steendrukmuseum.
1967–69 Became Master Printer at Universal Limited Art Editions, New York, run by Tatyana Grosman, working with Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns (the Target and Numbers series, now held by the NGV), Sam Francis, Robert Motherwell, Helen Frankenthaler, Lee Bontecou, James Rosenquist, Larry Rivers and Robert Morris. According to the Steendrukmuseum, Fred’s particular value to Grosman’s workshop was that he was not himself a practising artist — unlike many American printers of the time, which reduced friction in his collaborations with the artists.
1969–72 Joined Irwin Hollander in partnership to form Hollanders Workshop Inc., on the Lower East Side of New York. Hollander had previously been Technical Director of the Tamarind Lithography Workshop in California; the workshop’s name combined Hollander’s surname with Fred’s native country. The third member of staff from 1970 was Jim Sheehy of Cork, Ireland, who assisted Fred as printer. The workshop closed in 1974, having worked with more than forty artists over the decade and produced some of the most significant American graphic art of the period.
Worked with John Cage and Lois Long on The Mushroom Book, and with John Cage on 2 prints and 8 plexigrams which together form the work Not Wanting to Say Anything About Marcel (a tribute to the recently-deceased Marcel Duchamp). The Mushroom Book was printed in an edition of 75, from 12 lithographic stones and 59 aluminium plates, and took nearly a year to complete — from August 1971 to May 1972 — with Jim Sheehy assisting. It is currently on loan to Somerset House, London, for their exhibition Mushrooms: The Art, Design and Future of Fungi. Not Wanting to Say Anything About Marcel used chance procedures based on the I Ching to select letters, words and images — Cage’s first venture into visual art.
Also printed for Sam Francis, Walasse Ting, Pierre Alechinsky, Jean Michel Folon, Don Nice, Louise Nevelson, Saul Steinberg, James Rosenquist and Shiko Munakata. Also worked with Robert Morris and Lila Katzen during this period. Rosenquist’s 1970 lithograph Short Ends, printed with Fred, was later used as the poster image for the 8th New York Film Festival. Fellow printmakers recalled Rosenquist as warm and full of stories from his sign-painting years, and he even painted the workshop’s entrance logo himself.
Worked with Willem de Kooning and printed an important series of 24 lithographs with him — his first sustained attempt at printmaking. The workshop’s final three major projects before closing in 1974 were: the de Kooning lithographs, a series of Monochrome War Memorial proposals by Robert Morris, and The Mushroom Book.
A selection of Hollanders Workshop prints — presentation and working proofs — is held in the permanent collection of Limerick City Gallery of Art, Ireland, gifted in part by Jim Sheehy. The collection was exhibited there as Prints from Hollander Workshop New York & Other Works from LCGA’s Permanent Collection, 29 November 2019 – 22 March 2020, featuring Pierre Alechinsky, Richard Anuszkiewicz, Robert Baeumler, Willem de Kooning, Jean Michel Folon, Sam Francis, Jasper Johns, Robert Indiana, Maryan S. Maryan, Robert Morris, Robert Motherwell, Henry Pearson, Joseph Pla-Narbona, James Rosenquist, Peter Takal and Walasse Ting.
1972–79 Returned to Netherlands and set up a workshop at Oudkerk in Friesland. Printed and published for both European and American artists including Lucebert, Theo Kuijpers, James Rosenquist, Don Nice and Mark Tobey (then living in Basel). Rosenquist, John Cage and Tobey travelled from the United States specifically to work with Fred at Oudkerk, as did French-American sculptor Jacques Lipchitz. Dutch artists at Oudkerk also included Jean-Paul Vroom, Jan Sierhuis and Gerti Bierenbroodspot. Fred’s final Dutch collaboration was with Theo Kuijpers (May–December 1978), a matière artist working with materials like pig bladder, lead and wood; Kuijpers was initially wary of lithography’s fit with his practice but went on to make a series of seven colour lithographs with Fred, and was later inspired to travel to Australia to make further lithographs with him.
In 1997 the first exhibition of ‘printer’s proofs’ was held at ‘t Coopmanshus in Franeker, Friesland. This collection of American prints is now in the NGV.
Employed as a teacher in the Department of Graphics and Design at The Royal Academy of Art and Design, ‘s-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands, December 1977 to end of 1978.
1979 Emigrated to Australia and settled in Sydney, bringing his entire lithographic workshop and setting up in Kenthurst.
Printed John Olsen’s portfolio Down Under, followed by works by Tim Storrier and Lloyd Rees, for Port Jackson Press.
Printed the entire lithographic oeuvres of Lloyd Rees, James Gleeson, John Firth-Smith and Patsy Payne, and a substantial number of lithographs by Colin Lanceley, Brian Dunlop, Tim Storrier, John Olsen, Robert Jacks and Donald Friend.
Also worked with Judy Cassab, John Coburn, Kevin Connor, Frank Hodgkinson, Kenneth Jack, Hal Missingham, Jeff Rigby, Jan Senbergs, Brett Whiteley, Marion Borgelt and Guan Wei.
Part-time lecturer in lithography in the print department at Sydney College of the Arts, 1980–82.
1982–92 Part-time lecturer in lithography at TAFE, Surry Hills.
Loan of American, European and Australian printer’s proofs to the NGV resulted in the exhibition and catalogue The Artist and the Printer, NGV International, 9 July – 29 August 1982. This entire collection was later acquired by the NGV and exhibited 26 August – 27 November 1986. Key works included Robert Rauschenberg’s Pledge (1968), Willem de Kooning’s Woman at Clearwater Beach (1970), Jasper Johns’s Target (1967), and John Cage’s Not Wanting to Say Anything About Marcel (1969) — all now in the NGV Prints & Drawings collection.
Further Reading Note: Dean, Sonia. “The Artist and the Printer.” The Artist and the Printer: Lithographs 1966–1981. Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria, 1982.
Joint publications of lithographs were undertaken with artists John Firth-Smith, Brian Dunlop, Robert Jacks, Colin Lanceley and Tim Storrier. Lloyd Rees portfolios New Lithographs, Sandy Bay Set and A Tribute to Light were published jointly with Lou Klepac of The Beagle Press.
1993–94 Lithographs from the collection of AGNSW, supplemented by loans of mainly printer’s proofs, exhibited from the lithographer’s workshop at AGNSW, 22 October 1993 – 9 January 1994, comprising 15 years of collaboration with Australian artists.
1994–99 Moved lithographic studio from Kenthurst to Glebe Point Road, Glebe, continuing to print lithographs, some jointly published with Sherman Galleries, Sydney.
1997–98 Appointed Head of Printmaking at the National Art School, Sydney.
1999 Moved the entire workshop from Sydney to Byron Bay Shire, Northern NSW. Settled at Possum Creek, NSW, where he lived for 22 years. Continued to work with artists John Olsen, John Firth-Smith, Sharon Muir, William Robinson, Robert Jacks, Guan Wei, and Tim Storrier.
2006 Officially retired and sold his entire workshop to Julie Chambers, who set up the Art Vault in Mildura, Victoria.
2010 Tweed River Art Gallery held the exhibition Printers Proofs: From the Fred Genis Collection in March.
Gave an interview with Akky van Ogtrop (art historian/curator), which became an article in Imprint magazine (Volume 45, Number 2, June 2010) titled ‘Fred Genis: Master Printer’.
2012 Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Townsville, exhibited Coburn to Whiteley: Master Prints from the Fred Genis Collection, September–October.
2016 November — Lloyd Rees lithographic exhibition at Lone Goat Gallery, Byron Bay, NSW.
2017 June — Lloyd Rees lithographic exhibition at Art Net Gallery, Red Hill, Victoria. November–December — Tim Storrier lithographic exhibition at Art Net Gallery, Red Hill, Victoria.
2018 February — Lloyd Rees lithographic exhibition at Nexus Gallery, Bellingen, NSW. March — James Gleeson and Guan Wei lithographic exhibition at Jefa Gallery, Bangalow, NSW.
2021 Fred, Rina and Lois attended Arthur Boyd: Landscape of the Soul (a Bundanon Trust touring exhibition) at Tweed Regional Gallery & Margaret Olley Art Centre.
2022 Fred passed on 22 September, in Mullumbimby, surrounded by his loved ones, aged 88. Susi Muddiman OAM, director of Tweed Regional Gallery, wrote a public tribute for the Print Council of Australia describing Fred as generous of spirit, possessed of a wonderful sense of humour, and always happy to talk printmaking and his globetrotting life as a printer.
2023 Young Americans, 1968–74: Artist Proofs by Fred Genis exhibited at Lone Goat Gallery, Byron Bay, 2–30 September, featuring Robert Rauschenberg, John Cage, James Rosenquist, Robert Morris and Don Nice.
2024 Major retrospective Fred Genis: A Printer’s Proof, curated by Professor Pedram Khosronejad, at Grafton Regional Gallery, 11 May – 7 July, presenting original lithographs by 44 artists across three continents. Featured in an episode of the Inside the Gallery podcast, with commentary from Tim Storrier, Hendrik Kolenberg and Gallery Director Sarah Gurich, hosted by Tim Stackpool (a transcript is available via the Grafton Regional Gallery).
2025 — Director’s Cut, Selected Works from the Permanent Collection 2015–2025, Limerick City Gallery of Art, Ireland, 15 August – 30 November 2025, marking the retirement of outgoing gallery director Úna McCarthy. The exhibition included the Hollander Print Workshop print portfolio (compiled by Jim Sheehy) alongside a copy of The Mushroom Book, with prints by William Gropper, Sam Francis, Robert Rauschenberg, John Cage, Jasper Johns, Robert Morris, James Rosenquist, Robert Motherwell and others — with Fred Genis himself included among the featured printmakers.
2026 The Nederlands Steendrukmuseum, Valkenswaard, acquired the complete European collection and part of the American collection from the Fred Genis estate, along with archival materials and photographs — made possible by a donation from the Genis family and a bequest from Mrs Van Tilburg. The museum has announced plans to stage an exhibition on Hollanders Workshop Inc. in 2027/2028.
Family
Fred was married to Rina, with whom he had three daughters: Zora, Lois and Inga.
