Dieu Donné

Mission

Dieu Donné is a non-profit organization dedicated to the creation, promotion, and preservation of new contemporary art utilizing the hand papermaking process. The organization’s primary services and programs are devoted to working with mid-career and emerging artists to develop new, innovative methods of papermaking within the medium and the greater world of contemporary art. These programs provide a significant educational opportunity for contemporary artists by engaging them actively in the approaches to hand papermaking that Artistic Director Paul Wong has developed through collaborations with artists since our inception in 1976. Located in New York City, Dieu Donné houses a professional papermaking studio as well as a gallery, archive, and administrative offices.

Institutional Background

History of Papermaking as an American Tradition Dieu Donné is an artist’s workshop that has its roots in the long tradition of American fine art and papermaking. The medium emerged from the International Arts & Crafts movement through its American representative, Roycroft Studios, in the first half of the twentieth century. American artists such as Dard Hunter, Elbert Hubbard, Stanley William Hayter, and Douglas Howell are legendary for bridging the craft and fine art of papermaking so that the medium and the message became indistinguishable. Dard Hunter Paper Museum at MIT is an example of the results of such sustained efforts. From these early efforts, workshops spread throughout the U.S., creating opportunities for artists. By the early 1960s paper was established as a material of choice for artists. Because paper, unlike other materials, lends itself to a broad cultural milieu, it was particularly ripe for the diversity inherent in American culture. The renewed desire for experimentation in papermaking prompted founders Sue Gosin and Bruce Weinberg to open Dieu Donné in 1976, one of a few pioneer papermills in New York City and the U.S. Thirty five years later, Dieu Donné is among the hundreds of hand papermills and print shops across the country dedicated to the creation handmade paper. By adapting existing techniques from other media and inventing new methods, Dieu Donné has collaborated with artists of every political, cultural and stylistic persuasion to explore uncharted territory according to their own working strategies in painting, sculpture, installation, unique and editioned paper works, and artist books. Significantly, this collaborative approach has become a reciprocal process enabling the artists to benefit from each other’s knowledge and working methods while blurring the boundaries of previously discreet artistic categories such as painting and sculpture.