In the year 1939, the founding members of the American Color Print Society decided to create an organization for the exhibition of color prints. This was a time when only black and white prints were considered worthy of display in museums and galleries. The three founding members were Florence V. Cannon, Mary Mullineaux and Waunita Smith.

The American Color Print Exhibition of 1940, which included the work of the 85 original members, heralded the arrival of the color print as an American print medium. The use of color in printmaking encouraged artists to experiment with the traditional methods of printmaking such as lithography, block printing, etching, intaglio and monotype. This led to other printmaking techniques including the use of collage, found materials and digital printmaking. 

There have been many distinguished members during the eighty-plus year history of the organization. Among them have been Benton Spruance, Jerome Kaplan, Stella Drabkin, Jacob Landau, Dorothy Hutton, June Wayne, Eugene Feldman, Ethel Ashton, Bernard Kohn, Jeanette Kohn, Mildred Dillon, Abraham Hankins, John Taylor Arms, Richard Hood, Francoise Gilot, Samuel Maitin, Elizabeth MacDOnald, Jack Gerber, Thelma Grobes, Idaherma Williams, and Merle Spandorfer.

Today, the American Color Print Society is a national non-profit corporation with the following purpose:

“To promote and foster original graphic art: to encourage and promote exhibitions of original color prints and to educate art students and the public about the varied techniques of original color printmaking.”

Venues of recent exhibitions have included Villanova University (Connelly Center), the Print and Picture Collection of the Free Library of Philadelphia, Cheltenham Center for the Arts, Abington Art Center, The Plastic Club, the Chestnut Hill Gallery, Philagrafika International Print Festival, and the Mark Arts Center (Wichita, KS).

For more than 80 plus years, the ACPS membership has not only been inventive with their technical skills, but has grown geographically as well. In addition to Pennsylvania, members represented in our exhibitions are from New Jersey, New York, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, California, Tennessee, Texas, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Michigan, and New Mexico.