WASHINGTON, DC.- The Smithsonian Associates announces the 2008 commission of April Gornik to create a limited-edition lithograph titled “Blue Moonlight.” Through the Art Collectors Program, this signed and numbered 7-color lithograph in an edition of 100, is available for purchase. Gornik’s critical and popular success has positioned her as one of the most prominent landscape painters in the contemporary art world.

“Blue Moonlight” is a serene landscape with a mysterious double reflection of the moon. Created in a limited palate, this landscape owes as much to Gornik’s own interior perspective as it does to any exterior vista. Gornik creates views of nature in her lower-Manhattan studio where she draws from memories, dreams and imaginings. Her works have a bewitching, almost surreal beauty that reveal a signature style and sensibility unmistakably her own.

Born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1953, Gornik studied at the Cleveland Institute of Art before transferring to Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Canada. Her paintings and prints are in major private and museum collections, including the National Gallery of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, and National Museum of Women in the Arts.

“Blue Moonlight” is a 7-color lithograph signed and numbered edition of 100, printed on Rives BFK paper. It is sold unframed and comes with a Certificate of Authenticity from the Smithsonian. The image measures 20 x 20 ½ inches and the paper dimensions are 24 x 26 inches. “Blue Moonlight” was produced by master printer Maurice Sanchez of Derriere L’Etoile Studios, New York, N.Y. The price is $1200 for nonmembers and $950 for Smithsonian Associate Members. To take advantage of member prices, visit www.residentassociates.org/membership

Each year since 1973, The Smithsonian Associates Art Collectors Program has commissioned leading American artists to create limited-edition works of art. Many of the prints appear in the on-going exhibition, “Graphic Eloquence: Limited-Edition Prints from The Smithsonian Associates Art Collectors Program,” located in the Smithsonian’s Ripley Center. For more information contact Elizabeth Punsalan at 202-633-8632 or 202-633-8680 (Artline), or visit www.ArtCollectorsProgram.org.