Donald Saff

Donald Saff is an artist, art historian, and educator. Among his many honors, he was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to Italy in 1964. In 1968 Saff founded the printmaking workshop Graphicstudio at the University of South Florida, Tampa, where he served as a Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Visual Arts Department, and as Founding Dean of the College of Fine Arts.

In the early 1970s Saff worked with Rauschenberg at Graphicstudio on numerous experimental print projects, including Made in Tampa (1972–73), Crops (1973), and the Airport Suite (1974). In 1991 Saff established Saff Tech Arts (later Saff and Company) in Oxford, Maryland, where he collaborated with the artist to create such series as Eco-Echo (1992–93), Shales (1994–95), and Arcadian Retreat (1996). Saff served as artistic director for the Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange (ROCI, 1984–91), a project that epitomized Rauschenberg’s belief in the power of art as a catalyst for positive social change. He is the author of several essays on Rauschenberg’s work. Saff’s artistic collaborations with leading late-twentieth-century artists are the subject of a recent book, Donald Saff: Art in Collaboration, by Marilyn S. Kushner (2010).