In 1972 Boyd Saunders, from the University of South Carolina, invited every printmaker he knew in the South to meet at the annual convention of the Southeastern College Art Conference with the intention of forming a printmaker’s organization. (At that time, college and university printmaking programs tended to be small, isolated, and neglected.) The group that assembled in New Orleans for that meeting included Bernie Solomon, John O’Neil and Boyd Saunders. They wrote and approved by-laws and in 1973 the Southeastern Graphics Council was officially chartered by the State of South Carolina as a non-profit organization.

 

Boyd Saunders served as the first president from 1972 through 1974. Bernie Solomon hosted the first annual workshop conference in 1974 at his home institution of Georgia Southern College. In 1978, as the organization grew in membership, the name was changed to the Southern Graphics Council. Over the next 30 years, conferences were held in not only Southern states, but in New Jersey, Illinois, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Membership to the SGC also expanded, and now has a national and international membership. In 2010, the name was changed again to its current SGC International.