If you haven’t yet had a chance to stop by the newest exhibit to see Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe or Roy Lichtenstein’s awe-inspiring pop art in the Beatrice M. Haggerty Gallery, “Poets, Painters, and Paper: Post-World War II Art Exhibit” is ending this Saturday, Dec. 17, but not before a closing reception today, Thursday, Dec. 15, from 5:30 to 8 p.m., featuring presentations by the exhibit’s curators from the Wichita Falls Museum of Art (WFMA) at Midwestern State University.

Co-curated by Curator of Collections and Exhibitions Danny Bills and Assistant Professor of English Todd Giles, Ph.D., the exhibition features an array of Post-World War II American prints and poetry broadsides from various artists throughout the printmaking renaissance of the 60s and 70s. “Poets, Painters, and Paper” explores the cross-fertilization of the visual and literary arts made possible by the printmaking renaissance, fostered by studios and workshops in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Berkeley and New York City.

What originated in Ireland as a economic way for writers to publish poetry, broadsides prints allowed for artists and poets to collaborate on visual effects. “There’s a lot of interdisciplinary work at play here,” said Interim Curator at the Haggerty Gallery Christina Haley.

“Poets, Painters, and Paper” puts together close to 70 different artists, showing the evolution of printmaking — and the entire exhibit was put together by a group of graduate art students, Courtney Googe, Calli Nissen, Tony Veronese, Joseph Guzman and Matthew Jones, and one gallery student worker Raphael Cavanna. Students learned what it takes to put on a professional exhibit and handle valuable, priceless works of art. They were also responsible for arranging and designing the exhibit, maintaining adequate humidity levels in the gallery and setting up special lighting so the artwork is preserved.

“There’s a lof of creative stuff going on behind the bushes in the Art Village,” said Haley.

After seeing Warne Thiebaud’s linocut art work, Gumball Machine, as she was helping arrange the exhibit, Googe “fell in love” with the work for its use of color and pattern, after studying the printmaking renaissance period in her art history classes. Work like this, she said, inspires her own printmaking.

“I can’t believe I can walk five minutes and see this level of work, it’s like being at the Chicago Institute,” said English major Joseph Flynn, BA ’17, who visited the exhibit at the beginning of December.