New York Times: Kathan Brown, Acclaimed Fine Art Printmaker, Dies at 89
April 1, 2025
By Alex Williams
Kathan Brown, the founder of the San Francisco-based company Crown Point Press, who helped revive the centuries-old art of intaglio printmaking in the United States, producing limited-edition prints by artists like Elaine de Kooning, Chuck Close and Francesco Clemente, died on March 10 at her home in the Bay Area. She was 89.
Her death was confirmed by her son, Kevin Parker.
Ms. Brown spent more than 60 years establishing her reputation as a master of a printing technique that goes back to 15th-century Europe and was used by the likes of Rembrandt and Albrecht Dürer.
Crown Point Press is “the most instrumental American print shop in the revival of etching as a medium of serious art,” the art historian Susan Tallman wrote in her 1996 book, “The Contemporary Print.”
Unlike the more common practice of lithography, which uses chemicals to bind an image to the flat surface of a metal plate or stone, intaglio printing involves etching the image into a copper or zinc plate with a stylus or with acid, creating grooves that are then filled with ink.