PAPERBACKS OF PAINTING

'THE print is doing for painting what the paperback did for literature," says Edgar Breitenbach, chief of prints and photographs at the Library of Congress. "People can now afford to have originals.'' Two major shows this week support that view of the print's popularity. In Curator Breitenbach's galleries hang 88 prints collected from 21 states and Hawaii for the library's 16th National Exhibition of Prints, all finished in the past year; at the Brooklyn Museum, 136 prints culled out of 1,200 submitted from 36 states are on view (see opposite).

Once considered the poor cousins of painting, prints now stand on their own merits, have expanded from small-scale sketches to self-confident giant poster size, are being done in brilliant and tasteful colors. This year the Library of Congress, with one entry 6 ft. wide and several more than 4 ft., has abandoned its traditional mahogany showcases, hung its entire show on wallboards. Works in the two shows are all priced from $7.50 to $100, except for one $250 print. To the purchaser, this means a fresh work, bearing the personal imprint of the maker, costing no more than most color reproductions; to the artist, who can run off several prints from the same plate or block, it means a chance to reach a wider audience.

Perhaps the most influential print-man in the U.S. is Mauricio Lasansky, the driving force behind the University of Iowa's thriving print department. A refugee from Peron, Lasansky moved to Iowa in 1945, has since sent practicing printmakers to head print departments in some 25 Midwest and Far West colleges and universities. He thinks that prints will become more and more important in the U.S. "The most promising printmakers are young men under 35," he says. "If they continue at it, they will be masters at 45 or 50. Eventually the best prints of this century will come from America."

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