Yesterday I broke one of the few rules I set myself. I chose a print that visually I didn’t love. It’s meaningful, the concept excited me because of Frasconi’s Art in service of Justice bent, and the (probably intentional) convergence of the Kent State and Melville poem things. My intention was only to post prints that were visually exciting, that grabbed me viscerally, whether with pleasure or other feelings. The Frasconi thing grabbed my brain, not my gut. Sorry about that. (There are some Frasconi prints I find gut-grabbing, and I’ll probably come back with one of those at some point in the future.)
To make up for that, I’m going to share another Stow Wengenroth print. You may remember him as the lithographer who does mostly New England scenes that are gorgeous and so detailed. It’s so difficult to choose because I have yet to find a print of his that I don’t love. After much deliberation, I chose “Along the Canal”. So evocative! Just looking at the picture make me feel like it’s spring.
[I think this is the Blynman Canal in Gloucester, MA, connecting Gloucester Harbor to the Anisquam River, allowing passage from the eastern shore of Cape Ann to the western without going all the way around]
Antonio Frasconi (1919-2013) was a largely self-taught artist whose medium was mostly prints, in particular woodcuts. He grew up in Uruguay, and was apprenticed to a printer simply to learn a trade. He was soon drawing political cartoons which were published in newspapers. He came to the US at the end of WWII at the age of 26 with a scholarship to the Art Students League in NYC where he studied printmaking. After moving to California to be near his wife’s family, he worked as a gardener and security guard at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art where his skill was recognized, leading to a one man show at the museum. From then on, he was increasingly recognized as a talented artist, and was able to support himself with a mix of commercial art and art for its own sake. In addition to prints on their own, he did numerous illustrations and covers for books, including several children’s books.
Frasconi used his art to make important statements about how the world should be. He did a number of prints about such varied topics as the Disappeared (hundreds of Uruguayans who vanished from both Argentina and Uruguay during the dictatorship in the 70s), the use of the atomic bomb in Japan during WWII, and a series entitled Law and Order about murders in the US by various law enforcement agencies. The Law and Order series are united by an embossed gun sight superimposed on each of the prints.
Today’s print is entitled Law and Order: Kent, a portrayal of the 1970 shooting of 13 Kent State University students by the National Guard during a protest against the Vietnam War. Interestingly, Frasconi also illustrated the cover of a collection of Herman Melville’s poems, titled after one of the poems, called “On the Slain Collegians”, about the deaths of many young men during the Civil War. This book was published in 1971. Resonance intended or not?
On the Slain Collegians, by Herman Melville
Youth is the time when hearts are large, And stirring wars Appeal to the spirit which appeals in turn To the blade it draws. If woman incite, and duty show (Though made the mask of Cain), Or whether it be Truth’s sacred cause, Who can aloof remain That shares youth’s ardor, uncooled by the snow Of wisdom or sordid gain? The liberal arts and nurture sweet Which give his gentleness to man— Train him to honor, lend him grace Through bright examples meet— That culture which makes never wan With underminings deep, but holds The surface still, its fitting place, And so gives sunniness to the face And bravery to the heart; what troops Of generous boys in happiness thus bred— Saturnians through life’s Tempe led, Went from the North and came from the South, With golden mottoes in the mouth, To lie down midway on a bloody bed. Woe for the homes of the North, And woe for the seats of the South: All who felt life’s spring in prime, And were swept by the wind of their place and time— All lavish hearts, on whichever side, Of birth urbane or courage high, Armed them for the stirring wars— Armed them—some to die. Apollo-like in pride. Each would slay his Python—caught The maxims in his temple taught— Aflame with sympathies whose blaze Perforce enwrapped him—social laws, Friendship and kin, and by-gone days— Vows, kisses—every heart unmoors, And launches into the seas of wars. What could they else—North or South? Each went forth with blessings given By priests and mothers in the name of Heaven; And honor in both was chief. Warred one for Right, and one for Wrong? So be it; but they both were young— Each grape to his cluster clung, All their elegies are sung. The anguish of maternal hearts Must search for balm divine; But well the striplings bore their fated parts (The heavens all parts assign)— Never felt life’s care or cloy. Each bloomed and died an unabated Boy; Nor dreamed what death was—thought it mere Sliding into some vernal sphere. They knew the joy, but leaped the grief, Like plants that flower ere comes the leaf— Which storms lay low in kindly doom, And kill them in their flush of bloom.
Samella Sanders Lewis (born 1924) is an incredible figure. She started at Dillard and then moved to Hampton Institute, earning her bachelor’s degree. She continued her education at OSU, earning a masters and then her PhD in art history and cultural anthropology in 1951 (first African American woman to do so). She became the first Chair of the Fine Arts Department at Florida A&M University. Lewis has taught at a number of colleges and universities, and is currently on the faculty of Scripps College, which is part of the Claremont consortium in California. She founded and served as first curator of the Museum of African American Art in LA. She is a renowned artist, best known for her prints (lithographs, screen prints, woodcuts and linocuts), but also a painter.
Today’s print has tested my art history detective skills and found them sorely lacking. I find online images dated 1968, 1969, and 2006, and it is described variously as a woodcut or a linocut. My attempted reconstruction/hypothesis is that the original block was cut in the late 60s (’68 or ’69) and was a linocut, and that she redid it as a woodcut in 2006. Why? Perhaps the original block was lost, and there was demand for more impressions? My limited Internet skills were unable to go further than this. I am so curious to learn more.
When I closely examine different images found online with different dates in the captions (as well as handwritten on the print itself by the artist), I find small variations. (It feels like those children’s games–“circle 10 differences between these two pictures.”) These could be related to wear on a single original block, reprinted after a lapse of many years; or to variations in inking; or as I hypothesize above, to creation of a new block attempting to reproduce the old.
The print itself? The recorded title is either Prophet or Modern Day Prophet. I have not been able to find specific history or commentary on this piece. I look at that face and see sadness, experience, perhaps wisdom. It again amazes me how evocative a combination of black lines and white background can be. What do you see?
Today is for whimsy, not just one print, but an interesting printing technique. Gyotaku. Japanese fish printing! You take a real fish, brush it with ink or paint, press rice paper against it, and then peel it off. Sounds simple, but I imagine it’s a good deal harder to do than it sounds. It was apparently invented in the latter half of the nineteenth century and originally used by Japanese fishermen to document their catches. (Maybe better than taxidermy?)
You can do this with any kind of fish–squid, octopus, etc. I’ve seen beautiful examples with tortoises, and finally, shells. The shell print below and several others are available on Etsy, in a shop called iGyotaku.
Tuesday’s print: As you may have gathered already, the black and white “classic prints” (etchings, engravings, lithographs, by artists such as Martin Lewis and Stow Wengenroth) are my favorites. Recently, I discovered a contemporary etcher named DeAnn Prosia, whose richly textured prints have a very similar feel to Wengenroth’s. She is a New Yorker, and many of her etchings portray quintessential New York scenes–very similar to Martin Lewis, but set in the now (instead of Lewis’s work which was largely portraying his time–1910s to 1960s).
This piece is called Under the Elevated. There are numerous places in Manhattan and the 3 boroughs on the subway, where scenes like this could be found. I look at this print and it makes me remember what it feels like to live in the city. I lived in Astoria at the end of the R subway line, which was elevated there, and the neighborhood there felt similar to this.
Monday’s print: I originally was taken with “classic” prints–largely black and white etchings and engravings, some lithographs. I find many contemporary color prints overwhelming, plus they obscure the detailed textures that I love most in the “classic” prints. My dear friend Ruth Super introduced me to a contemporary British printmaker named Andy Lovell, who works in color. At first, I was put off by the color prints, but as I have continued to look at them periodically, I have grown to really appreciate and enjoy some of them. My favorite so far is this lovely lighthouse scene. I am not sure of the technique used for these prints–I think they are screenprints but haven’t been able to find that info about specific prints.
Here is the URL of his website where you can see more and purchase prints. Much as I enjoy them, the prices are a bit more than I am prepared to spend, but you may feel differently. https://andylovell.co.uk/
Share-a-print-a-day, week 2: another contemporary artist, Vincent de Boer, from Germany; this one young and not long embarked on his career. (Not to be confused with a contemporary Dutch “musical artist” of the same name. Took me a minute to realize they were two separate people, not one multi-talented person.) He’s very good, and shows a lot of his work on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/winston_artist/) as well as selling some prints on Etsy (https://www.etsy.com/shop/WinstonArtist?ref=shop_sugg). So far, all of his prints that I know of are linocuts (printed from relief blocks carved from a sheet of linoleum mounted on a wooden block) I actually bought an original impression of the print I am featuring today (and will likely buy more of his work in the future). When I saw it, it spoke to me. I knew immediately that it was a reaction to the pandemic lockdown, titled “Isolation”.
To round out my first week of share-a-print-each-day, I’m returning to the artist that started it all for me, Martin Lewis (1881-1962). Lewis was born in Australia, but emigrated to the US in his teens and settled here, finding various ways to support himself with his artistic talents until eventually succeeding financially as a serious artist in the heyday of print art in the US. Lewis was an ardent printmaker, experimenting with numerous different intaglio techniques including many variations on both engraving and etching. Today’s print was produced by drypoint, an engraving technique that allows very fine lines and detail at the expense of producing a plate that degrades after a fairly small number of prints. Drypoint plates rarely produce more than 25 or so high-quality impressions, often less, and there are often noticeable differences even a few impressions apart. Since it’s Saturday morning, I’m sharing a lovely morning scene in Manhattan titled Quarter to Nine, Saturday’s Children, illustrating people going to work on E. 34th St at Park Avenue on a Saturday morning. The title is derived from the nursery rhyme “Monday’s child is fair of face….” in which “Saturday’s child works hard for a living”.
Friday’s print: Representation matters. I’ve been looking at prints by a number of African-American artists. Some prints aim to illustrate the black experience in America, whereas others seem to be simply about representation. I’ve not been able to learn much about the history of today’s print by John Biggers (1924-2001, a fascinating figure), but it’s a lovely picture. It may simply have been a portrayal of a moment, or it may have been intending to present a picture of a child of color, to contribute to children not thinking of light skin as “normal” or the default. In any case, it’s a charming and beautiful work of art.
Thursday’s print: In early 1800s France, Jean-Ignace-Isidore Gérard (who used the pseudonym Grandville) made fun of the bourgeoisie in a book collection of lithograph caricatures (Les metamorphoses du jour) portraying everyday scenes with anthropomorphized animals. I don’t have the detailed knowledge of the period nor enough French to understand many of the scenes, but they are beautifully done, and many are charming and funny even without fully understanding the context. These lithographs were printed in black and white, and then colored by hand afterwards. When the first edition sold out, the caricatures were copied into woodblocks for reprinting, and again hand-colored afterwards.
