Prints With/Out Pressure
Artists E-M
Fritz Eichenberg (American, born Germany, 1901–1990)
Fritz Eichenberg was born in Cologne, Germany, and early on in his life
decided that he wanted to become “an artist with a message.” In
1918, with the end of both school and World War I, and inspired by the
works of Goya and Daumier, he became an apprentice to a lithographer.
Three years later he began his studies at the Academy of Graphic Arts
in Leipzig under the renowned illustrator Hugo Steiner-Prag. While a
student, Eichenberg taught himself wood engraving, and began to illustrate
books. After his graduation from the Academy he moved to Berlin, where
he worked for ten years as a newspaper artist for Ullstein Publications.
In 1933, fearful of Hitler’s increasing power, he moved with his
wife and child to New York, where he soon found work illustrating books
and teaching wood engraving. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s he was a
relentlessly prolific illustrator, receiving commissions from a variety
of publishers, while maintaining numerous other artistic commitments.
His teaching venues included the New School, Pratt Institute (where he
was the Chairman of the Graphic Arts Department for ten years, and one
of the founders of the Pratt-Contemporaries Graphic Arts Center in 1956),
and the University of Rhode Island, Kingston.
Fritz Eichenberg (American, born Germany, 1901–1990)
[Breakfast at Lowood School], for Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
New York: Random House, 1943
Wood engraving
American Institute of Graphic Arts Keepsake
Gift of Karl Kup
Early in the novel, the ten-year-old, afflicted orphan Jane Eyre is
sent by her aunt to attend Lowood School, where, according to the daughter
of the school’s head, the girls are “quiet and plain … with
their hair combed behind their ears, and their long pinafores, and those
little Holland pockets outside their frocks.” This illustration
depicts Jane’s impression of her first meal there, the morning
after her arrival: “The refectory was a great, low-ceiled, gloomy
room; on two long tables smoked basins of something hot, which however,
to my dismay, sent forth an odour far from inviting. I saw a universal
manifestation of discontent when the fumes of the repast met the nostrils
of those destined to swallow it…. The spoons were moved slowly:
I saw each girl taste her food and try to swallow it; but in most cases
the effort was soon relinquished. Breakfast was over, and none had breakfasted.
Thanks being returned for what we had not got, and a second hymn chanted,
the refectory was evacuated for the school-room.”
Fritz Eichenberg (American, born Germany, 1901–1990)
[Mr. Rochester and Jane Eyre], for Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
New York: Random House, 1943
Wood engraving
Cadwalader Fund, purchased from the artist
Jane’s first encounter with Mr. Rochester, who employs her as
a governess to his young ward, is a chance meeting. While sitting on
a stile one January afternoon, Jane hears the “metallic clatter” of
an approaching horse. She is reminded of certain nursery tales in which
a spirit “in the form of a horse, mule, or large dog, haunted solitary
ways, and sometimes came upon belated travellers.” Little does
she know that the horse’s rider is her employer, and her future
husband. Mr. Rochester takes little notice of Jane, and in retrospect
he remarks: “On a stile in Hay Lane I saw a quiet little figure
sitting by itself. I passed it as negligently as I did the pollard willow
opposite to it: I had no presentiment of what it would be to me.”
Fritz Eichenberg (American, born Germany, 1901–1990)
[Mr. Rochester and Jane Eyre], for Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
New York: Random House, 1943
Wood engraving
Cadwalader Fund, purchased from the artist
After months of hiding their true feelings, Jane and Mr. Rochester finally
confess their passionate love for one another while walking together
in the orchard one midsummer evening. Here again Eichenberg suggests
the mood of the scene through his proficient command of this expressive
medium. The monumental and evocative background of twisted trees and
dramatic moonlit sky makes the figures appear small and fragile, perhaps
alluding to the torment they have endured thus far, and the arduous and
painful events they will face before they are able to be together.
Fritz Eichenberg (American, born Germany, 1901–1990)
[Mr. Rochester, blinded], for Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
New York: Random House, 1943
Wood engraving
Cadwalader Fund, purchased from the artist
When Jane returns to Mr. Rochester at the end of the novel, she finds
him blinded and crippled by a fire that burned his residence to the ground.
Before approaching him she observes him from a distance: “He lifted
his head and opened his eyelids, gazed blank, and with a straining effort,
on the sky, and towards the amphitheatre of trees: one saw that all to
him was void darkness. He stretched his right hand (the left arm, the
mutilated one, he kept hidden away in his bosom); he seemed to wish by
touch to gain an idea of what lay around him: he met but vacancy still;
for the trees were some yards off where he stood.” He is convinced
that Jane should be “revolted” by his present appearance,
but her reaction is just the opposite: “It is a pity to see [your
arm]; and a pity to see your eyes—and the scar of fire on your
forehead: and the worst of it is, one is in danger of loving you too
well for all this; and making too much of you.”
Fritz Eichenberg (American, born Germany, 1901–1990)
[Heathcliff under the tree], for Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
New York: Random House, 1943
Wood engraving
Cadwalader Fund, purchased from the artist
Of his illustrations for Wuthering Heights Eichenberg remarked: “The
agonizing love between Heathcliff and Cathy is acted out against the
backdrop of the two foreboding manor houses, Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering
Heights. The medium helps the illustrator: the graver digs into the wood,
creating the swirling fog, the cold breath, the gnarled trees and dark
forbidding interiors, the bristling fur of dogs and the faces lined with
impassioned grief, the splintered glass broken by a ghostly hand, and
in the finale the phantoms walking across the heath, hand in hand.”
Upon hearing of Cathy’s death from the housekeeper, Nelly Dean,
Heathcliff prays that her ghost shall haunt him for the rest of his days.
Nelly then watches, appalled, as Heathcliff “dashed his head against
the knotted trunk; and, lifting up his eyes, howled, not like a man,
but like a savage beast being goaded to death with knives and spears.”
Antonio Frasconi (American, born Argentina, 1919)
Antonio Frasconi is an ardent proponent of bringing art to the masses,
which he accomplished through his exuberant woodcuts and book illustrations.
Born in Buenos Aires to Italian parents, he spent his childhood in Montevideo,
Uruguay. At age twelve he was apprenticed to a printmaker, and he later
worked as a freelance political caricaturist. He came to New York in
1945 on a scholarship from the Art Students League, where he met fellow
printmaker, and his future wife, Leona Pierce. He produced a huge body
of work, cutting, inking, and printing all his woodcuts himself. Woodcut,
with its directness and simplicity, has historically appealed to social
and political satirists. Frasconi upheld this tradition, and his work
retains an ardent, often humorous, focus on the human condition.
Antonio Frasconi (American, born Argentina, 1919)
Boy with Cock
Color woodcut, 1947
Image: 27 x 14"
Norrie Fund, purchased from Weyhe Gallery
Antonio Frasconi (American, born Argentina, 1919)
Hoover
Color woodcut, 1947
Gift of Martin L. and Rona Schneider in memory of Meyer and Pauline Parodneck
While working in Uruguay as a cartoonist, Frasconi frequently caricatured
major political figures, including Francisco Franco and Adolf Hitler.
He continued that tradition with this satirical portrait of FBI director
J. Edgar Hoover.
Antonio Frasconi (American, born Argentina, 1919)
Albert Einstein
Woodcut, issued by the Princeton Print Club, New Jersey, 1952
Cadwalader Fund, purchased from the Princeton Print Club
The Princeton Print Club was established in 1940 by Elmer Adler, founder
and head of the WPA’s Graphic Arts Division. Its goal was to issue
one print per year, of a Princeton subject, to its two hundred members.
The money raised from membership dues went toward purchasing hundreds
of prints, which were framed and made available, free of charge, to undergraduates
for display in their dormitory rooms.
Albert Einstein became a lifetime member of Princeton University’s
Institute for Advanced Study in 1933 and was a prominent figure on campus
until his death in 1955.
Antonio Frasconi (American, born Argentina, 1919)
The Hare with Ability and the Tortoise with Staying Power, from The
12 Fables of Aesop, retold by Glenway Wescott
New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1954
Linoleum cut
Edition of 975
General Book Fund
This book was the first of a series of limited editions published by
The Museum of Modern Art. The choice of subject may have been inspired
by a portfolio of woodcuts of fables that Frasconi produced in 1950.
Antonio Frasconi (American, born Argentina, 1919)
[Edgar Allan Poe with a Raven], from The Face of Edgar Allan Poe
South Norwalk, Conn., 1959
Woodcut
Edition of 250
Norrie Fund
This little book contains a brief discourse on Poe by Charles Baudelaire,
and eleven woodcut portraits by Frasconi, with additional color woodcut
portraits on the front and back covers.
Naum Gabo (American, born Russia, 1890–1977)
Considered one of the greatest sculptors of the 20th century, Naum
Gabo (born Naum Pevzner in Russia) also experimented with other avenues
of artistic expression: a series of unrealized architectural designs
and, in 1927, sets and costumes for Diaghilev’s ballet La Chatte. Late
in life, Gabo was enticed into making wood engravings by his neighbor
William Ivins, by then retired from his position as Curator of Prints
at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Gabo translated the aesthetic of his
transparent, mobile sculptures into two dimensions with the sparest of
incisions on an end-grain wood block, printing with a roller or his hand
to establish a middle tone, and then spot printing with sticks, spoons,
or his fingers to create special effects. Gabo executed nineteen wood
engravings in all, each impression inked uniquely and printed in various
colors and on different papers.
Naum Gabo (American, born Russia, 1890–1977)
Opus Two (The Pillow)
Wood engraving from an end-grain block of holly, 1950
Wallach Fund
Adolph Gottlieb (American, 1903–1974)
Adolph Gottlieb was a rarity: an Abstract Expressionist painter who
made a lifelong commitment to printmaking. In the 1930s and 1940s he
exhibited his prints with The Graphic Circle, a loose association of
modernist artists that included Josef Albers, Louis Schanker, Werner
Drewes, and Stanley William Hayter. As a painter he was associated with
members of the nascent New York School, and was a founding member of
the Ten, a group that included Mark Rothko and William Baziotes. He and
Rothko in 1943 published in The New York Times the guiding principles
of their work: “We are for the large shape because it has the impact
of the unequivocal. We wish to reassert the picture plane. We are for
the flat forms because they destroy illusion and reveal truth.” In
the early 1940s these precepts took for Gottlieb the form of a visual
language of invented symbols and pictographs, which suggested an ancient,
universal language. Influenced by Native American art, which intrigued
him when he lived in the Arizona desert, and by Jungian theories of the
collective unconscious and archetypes, Gottlieb included these symbols
and pictographs in his drypoints and woodcuts, as he emphasized the directness
and primitiveness of these printmaking media.
Adolph Gottlieb (American, 1903–1974)
Untitled Color Woodcut
Color woodcut, 1944
Image: 14 5/8 x 11 5/8"
Weitenkampf Fund
Helen West Heller (American, 1872–1955)
Helen West Heller was born in Rushville, Illinois, and became interested
in painting at a very young age. Although she received some art education
at the School of Fine Arts in St. Louis and the Art Students League in
New York, she was for the most part self-taught. As an adult she moved
back and forth between Chicago and New York several times, before settling
in New York for the last twenty-five years of her life. She worked in
a distinctly individual style, and was intensely productive and unwaveringly
committed to her artistic passions. In 1923, during a period of great
poverty, she turned to the affordable materials of wood block and linoleum,
often printing her results on wrapping paper. From then until the end
of her life she produced more than six hundred woodcuts, and spent a
great deal of time studying art and history, and writing. She was very
active in artists’ social and political affairs, and in 1948 was
elected an associate of the National Academy of Design. Her innovative
sense of composition—she often brings figures and settings together
in a mosaic of patterns—demonstrates a considerable knowledge and
appreciation of the Eastern and Western traditions of the block print
through the centuries.
In the book format of Woodcuts, U.S.A., each of sixteen woodcuts
is paired with a brief passage by an American writer. The printmaker
John Taylor Arms wrote of the artist in his introduction to the book: “To
this one of her many admirers she has, through her self and her art,
brought much spiritual help and inspiration.”
Helen West Heller (American, 1872–1955)
Haul, Sewing Women, Swimming, Sheep Shearing, News Stand, Coal
Mining, from Woodcuts, U.S.A.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1947
Woodcuts
Gift of the artist
Eva Hesse (American, born Germany, 1936–1970)
Eva Hesse was born in Hamburg, but was sent to England in 1938 to escape
the Nazis, and the following year moved with her family to New York City.
She studied art at Cooper Union and then at Yale University, where she
was Josef Albers’s favorite student in his color course. Although
her artistic career after Yale lasted only ten years, before her death
from brain cancer at age thirty-four, Hesse was very prolific in a number
of mediums. Influenced by Surrealism, Minimalism, and Conceptualism,
as well as Abstract Expressionism, she worked with both traditional and
untraditional materials, from oil paint and watercolor to rope, latex,
and fiberglass. This woodcut may date from her time at Cooper Union,
where she is known to have experimented with lithography and etching,
and to have studied color with Neil Welliver, whose course was similar
to Albers’s. Here the artist demonstrates particular zeal and intuition
in her layering of red, green, and blue to create a harmonious and dynamic
surface.
Eva Hesse (American, born Germany, 1936–1970)
Untitled
Color woodcut, n.d. (early to mid-1950s?)
Wallach Fund
Phyllis Skolnick Hirschberg (American, born 1925)
Phyllis Skolnick Hirschberg was born in Brooklyn, New York. She attended
the Art Students League on scholarship and graduated with honors from
Cooper Union. She works as both a painter and printmaker, and has taught
art in private schools and from her studio. Dedicated to her community,
she has also directed local art exhibitions near her home on Long Island.
Her work shows a wide range of interests, from her early expressionist
woodcuts to her later paintings of interiors and the local landscape.
Phyllis Skolnick Hirschberg (American, born 1925)
From Illustrations for Voltaire’s Candide
Woodcuts, 1946, reprinted 1994
Gift of the artist
Amid the Ruins of Lisbon After the Earthquake, Candide and Pangloss
Reflect Upon the Vagaries of Universal Reason
From the Old Woman’s Tale: “I Saw My Mother and All Our
Italian Women Torn in Pieces, Gashed, Massacred by the Monsters Who
Disputed Them”
Candide Receives 4000 Lashes, Which Lay Bare the Muscles and Nerves
from His Neck to His Backside
A Splendid Auto-Da-Fe, in Which Candide Is Flogged, Two Jews Are
Roasted Alive, and Pangloss Is Hanged
These four prints are from a series of eight woodcuts based on Voltaire’s Candide.
They were first exhibited at the Argent Gallery, New York, in 1946, alongside
the prints of Käthe Kollwitz, one of the German Expressionists whom Hirschberg
admired. This series was reprinted and exhibited in 1994.
Ian Hugo (American, 1898–1985)
Ian Hugo (born Hugh Guiler), a banker by profession, was best known
as the husband of Anaïs Nin, and with his wife founded Gemor Press to
publish her books. Hugo made nine engravings and a cover design for Under
a Glass Bell, a collection of her short stories issued in 1944. Nin’s
erotic writings and Hugo’s Surrealist imagery, influenced by the
work of Stanley William Hayter and other European émigrés in New York,
were praised by the influential critic Edmund Wilson, and the edition,
limited to 300 copies, sold out quickly. Hugo etched and engraved his
strange aquatic imagery on copper plates. Sometimes he wiped and printed
the plates as for an intaglio print, the ink squeezed from the etched
and engraved “valleys”; at other times he applied ink with
a roller, and printed the raised surfaces like a woodcut. Hugo appreciated
the beauty of his copper plates, and frequently exhibited them along
with his prints; in 1946 he even incorporated them into furniture. Hugo
later became an avant-garde filmmaker.
Ian Hugo (American, 1898–1985)
Under a Glass Bell
Engraving and softground etching, printed as a relief print, 1944
Kennedy Fund
Mervin Jules (American, 1912–1994)
Painter and printmaker Mervin Jules was born in Baltimore, Maryland,
and trained at the Maryland Institute of Fine and Applied Arts, before
coming to New York to study with Thomas Hart Benton at the Art Students
League. While working for the Federal Art Project, he experimented with
various printmaking techniques, including silkscreen (he was one of the
first American artists to attempt that medium). He worked primarily in
woodcut and lithography, and frequently portrayed the world of musicians
and singers. He was also a dedicated teacher: he was on the faculty at
Smith College for over twenty years, before returning to New York to
chair the art department at City College.
Mervin Jules (American, 1912–1994)
Folk Singer
Color woodcut, issued by the International Graphic Arts Society
(IGAS), 1957
Norrie Fund, purchased on membership to the International Graphic Arts
Society
In IGAS’s bi-monthly publication, art dealer Hudson D. Walker
remarked: “I consider Mervin Jules one of our most creative printmakers…. ‘Folk
Singer’ is rich in color—yellow, tan, grey and black—and
is specifically evocative of the singing of the young man who inspired
the print. It is an excellent example of contemporary American printmaking.”
Misch Kohn (American, 1916–2002)
Misch Kohn’s six-decade career was notable for his pioneering
large-scale wood engravings. Born in Kokomo, Indiana, he received his
MFA from the John Herron Art Institute, Indiana, and spent his early
years working for the WPA in Chicago. In 1943 he traveled to Mexico to
study with Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco, as well as the artists
working at the famous printshop Taller de Gráfica Popular in Mexico City.
Around 1948, while back in Chicago, he began making large-format wood
engravings. He glued multiple pieces of end-grain boxwood together and,
after carving the image, printed the block on a lithographic press. During
a stint in Paris in 1952, Kohn worked alongside such artists as Pablo
Picasso and Marc Chagall and printed at some of the most illustrious
workshops, including those of Roger Lacourière, André Clot, and Fernand
Mourlot. After this period he began experimenting with abstraction, using
intaglio printmaking techniques learned in France, and over the years
he increasingly used color in his works. In the 1970s he moved to California,
where he directed the printmaking program at California State University
at Hayward.
Misch Kohn (American, 1916–2002)
Warrior Gagatai
Wood engraving, 1954
Norrie Fund, purchased from the artist
Jagatai was the son of the Mongol warrior Genghis Khan. After the death
of his father, he ruled over the territory that corresponds to present-day
Afghanistan and Turkistan. Kohn had recently read about the Mongol empire
and began to create abstract “portraits” based on these historical
figures.
Paul Landacre (American, 1893–1963)
Born in Columbus, Ohio, Paul Landacre created serene, nearly abstract,
wood engravings inspired by the California landscape. When an illness
in college left him with only partial use of one arm and leg, he turned
to art as a means of physical and mental therapy. One year later he moved
to San Diego, California, and studied at the Otis Art Institute. Originally
a commercial artist, he later dedicated himself full-time to his art,
including frequent employment as a book illustrator. His wife was employed
at Jake Zeitlin’s Los Angeles bookshop, an influential gathering
space for artists and writers where Landacre exhibited and sold his prints.
He expanded on the potential of wood engraving, a popular 19th-century
medium for book illustration. Diverging from its typical use for narrative,
highly descriptive imagery, he produced pared-down, delicate visions
of the rugged coastal landscape and fauna and wildlife of southern California.
Paul Landacre (American, 1893–1963)
Laguna Cove
Wood engraving, issued by The Woodcut Society, Kansas City, 1941
Norrie Fund, purchased on subscription to The Woodcut Society, Kansas City
The Woodcut Society of Kansas City, Missouri, was established in 1932 “Primarily
for the purpose of publishing original woodcuts for its members [limited
to two hundred]. It may also hold exhibitions of woodcuts, establish
a permanent collection of fine prints and engage in other activities
for the promotion of the Art of the Woodcut generally.”
Owing to its large edition size (200 copies), Landacre did not print
this wood engraving himself, as was his custom. In the accompanying essay,
he remarked: “The subject of this present engraving, Laguna Cove,
is a favorite spot near Laguna Beach, California. One summer night the
moon seemed to illuminate this particular scene and create a pattern
of light and shadow that had to be recorded.”
Jacques Lipchitz (American, born Lithuania, 1891–1973)
Born Chaim Jacob Lipchitz in Druskieniki, Lithuania, Jacques Lipchitz
was one of the first sculptors to translate the qualities of Cubist painting
into three-dimensional works; his later works became more fluid, often
depicting mythological or allegorical subjects. Lipchitz went to Paris
in 1909 to pursue his ambition to become a sculptor. He studied at the École
des Beaux-Arts and the Académie Julian, and then lived in the city for
nearly two decades. During this period he met and spent time with many
of the most celebrated artists and poets of the day, and likely became
acquainted with Stanley William Hayter and his workshop. In 1941 Lipchitz
left Paris, and eventually moved to New York, where he reunited with
many other refugee artists at Atelier 17’s new location. After
the war he returned to Paris, but later moved back to the United States,
becoming a citizen in 1958.
Jacques Lipchitz (American, born Lithuania, 1891–1973)
Always the Sacrifice …, from the Ruthven Todd portfolio
New York: Atelier 17, 1947
Open bite etching, printed as a relief print
Jacques Lipchitz (American, born Lithuania, 1891–1973)
Always the Sacrifice …, from the Ruthven Todd portfolio
New York: Atelier 17, 1947
Open bite etching, printed as an intaglio print
Vincent Longo (American, born 1923)
Vincent Longo first experimented with the woodcut while he was on
a Fulbright fellowship in Italy in 1951–52, and on his return to
America he joined a circle of artists, including Edmond Casarella and
Robert Conover, who were studying at the Brooklyn Museum School with
Louis Schanker. In 1955 Longo succeeded Schanker as printmaking instructor
at Brooklyn; he later joined the faculty at Hunter College. Longo channeled
his interest in printmaking and Abstract Expressionism into a series
of large gestural woodcuts. Guided only by a sketch painted on the block
in India ink, he worked rapidly and surely to successfully translate
the freedom and spontaneity of Abstract Expressionist painting into the
relief print. His expressive, energized calligraphy ranged from looping
lines to fractured, splintered, and radiating shafts. He could vary each
impression during the printing process, placing a sheet of dampened Japanese
paper face down on the inked block and rubbing the back of the sheet
with a wooden tool. His prints often suggested new formal ideas and solutions
to him, which, in turn, served to inspire his painting, the primary focus
of his artistic energies.
Vincent Longo (American, born 1923)
Imago
Woodcut, 1954
Gift of Judith Goldman
Louis Lozowick (American, born Russia, 1892–1973)
The towering skyscrapers of American cities attracted many artists,
including Louis Lozowick. Born in a small Russian village, Lozowick began
drawing as a child and studied for two years at the Kiev Art School.
Following his older brother, he illegally immigrated to the United States
at age fourteen. He completed high school in Newark, New Jersey, and
attended the National Academy of Design, New York, and Ohio State University.
In the early 1920s, he spent time in Europe where he was exposed to Cubism,
Futurism, and Russian Constructivism. His early work reflects these influences,
which he combined with American subject matter to produce austere, geometric
visions of the urban landscape. In response to the social upheavals of
the 1930s, he expanded his themes to include the human aspects of city
life and the role of the worker in society. He primarily used lithography,
although while employed by the New York Graphic Arts Division of the
WPA from 1938 to 1940 he experimented with a variety of media, including
woodcut. An ardent traveler, he balanced his career with trips all over
the world, from Egypt and Japan to Israel and Mexico.
Louis Lozowick (American, born Russia, 1892–1973)
Barge Canal—Harlem
Woodcut, 1950
Gift of Mary Covington
Harlem River Ship Canal connects the Hudson and Harlem rivers at the
northern tip of Manhattan. The project was begun in 1826 to create a
more efficient shipping route between the Long Island Sound and the Hudson
River. The first section was finished in 1895, and the entire project
was completed in 1938. Its creation permitted ships to easily circumnavigate
Manhattan for the first time.
Boris Margo (American, born Ukraine, 1902–1995)
Born in Ukraine and educated in Moscow and Leningrad, Boris Margo already
favored a Surrealist style when he arrived in New York in 1930 to study
and later to teach at the Roerich Museum. By 1931 he was experimenting
with the printmaking process that led to the cellocut. Margo poured celluloid,
diluted with acetone to a viscous consistency, onto a smooth surface
like a wood block or metal plate. He would vary the thickness of the
matrix, building up some areas to a high relief; once the celluloid had
hardened, he would work the surface with etching or woodcut tools, or
further etch the surface with acetone squirted from a bottle. Color would
be added in a variety of ways. Margo used stencils, or applied multiple
colors by hand to a single plate. He also would line up variously colored
inks onto a plate, apply a roller to the colors to mix them, ink the
cellocut with the blended pigments, and print the now multicolored plate
in a single run through the press. This fluid medium, which at times
seems to foretell Abstract Expressionist drip painting, well served Margo’s
brand of Surrealism: a futuristic universe, inhabited by strange biological
and architectural forms. By the 1950s Margo had introduced imagery that
reflected his fascination with space exploration.
Boris Margo (American, born Ukraine, 1902–1995)
Black Light
Cellocut, 1946
Gift of Stanley Zimiles
Boris Margo (American, born Ukraine, 1902–1995)
Dancers
Cellocut, 1946
Gift of Murray Zimiles
Boris Margo (American, born Ukraine, 1902–1995)
The Fountain
Cellocut, 1946
Weitenkampf Fund
Boris Margo (American, born Ukraine, 1902–1995)
Metallic Symphony
Cellocut, 1946
Gift of Stanley Zimiles
Boris Margo (American, born Ukraine, 1902–1995)
Space Ship #2
Cellocut, 1949
Gift of Stanley Zimiles
Boris Margo (American, born Ukraine, 1902–1995)
Untitled
Cellocut, n.d.
Wallach Fund
Alice Trumbull Mason (American, 1904–1971)
Born in Litchfield, Connecticut, Alice Trumbull Mason studied at the
National Academy of Design and with Arshile Gorky. She was an early champion
of non-objective art and a founding member of American Abstract Artists,
along with Josef Albers. By 1938 she was exhibiting pure abstract art
at the Whitney Annual. Like many others, she gravitated to Stanley William
Hayter’s Atelier 17 and began making prints; her first woodcuts
date from 1952. Woodcut appealed to Mason with its potential for bold,
vigorous images and the immediacy of the material: “I enjoy making
woodcuts because for me they are easier to keep simple, that is, there
is a certain directness in dealing with wood that I have not found in
dealing with a metal plate. This is completely personal to me.”
Alice Trumbull Mason (American, 1904–1971)
Cool Arch
Color woodcut, 1960
Norrie Fund
Seong Moy (American, born China, 1921)
Seong Moy’s life and work reflect a fusion of Western and Asian
influences. Born in China, Moy came to the United States with his father
and grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he enrolled in the local Federal
Art Project school and worked at the FAP printshop. He won a scholarship
to the Art Students League in 1941, and studied printmaking with Will
Barnet and painting at the Hans Hofmann School. He returned to the League
on the G.I. Bill, and in 1947 he visited China, reunited with his mother,
and met the woman who would join him on his return to New York as his
wife.
By the early 1950s Moy was one of the leading exponents of the color
relief print. His lyrical imagery, often based on Chinese themes, merged
the painterly gesture of Abstract Expressionism with a mark akin to Chinese
calligraphy. He experimented with new materials, and used cellophane
to define the color separations for his woodblocks. He traced a finished
color sketch onto cellophane, one color to each sheet, which when layered
simulated the finished composition. Moy then transferred the component
images from each individual sheet to a series of wood blocks, which he
tackled with a variety of tools, from knives to rasps, to realize interesting
textural effects.
Seong Moy (American, born China, 1921)
Two Circus Acts in One, issued by the International Graphic
Arts Society (IGAS), 1953
Color woodcuts
Norrie Fund
1st Block; 1st–2nd Blocks; 1st–2nd–3rd Blocks; 1st–2nd–3rd–4th
Blocks; 5th Block–Key; as editioned for IGAS
Seong Moy (American, born China, 1921)
Two Circus Acts in One
Color woodcut, final state with all five blocks, issued by the
International Graphic Arts Society (IGAS), 1953
Norrie Fund
The Chinese circus of Seong Moy’s youth is the subject here—the
gay abandon of the tumblers, acrobats, and clowns, with all the color
and confusion of a circus. In this series of progressive proofs, Moy
demonstrates the process of creating a color woodcut: in a sequence of
layered color blocks, the background block is the first to be printed,
the keyblock (the black outline) the last.
Seong Moy (American, born China, 1921)
Nassau County #2
Color woodcut, issued by the International Graphic Arts Society
(IGAS), 1962
Bequest of Una Johnson
Beginning in the late 1950s, Moy turned increasingly to nature for
inspiration for his paintings and prints.
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