Day 5: Stow Wengenroth, New England Lithographs

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Wednesday’s print: Stow Wengenroth (1906-1978) was a prolific lithographer whom Andrew Wyeth once called “America’s greatest living artist working in black and white”. The bulk of his lithographs were New England scenes, including landscapes and seascapes. (Sue Fendrick he lived in Rockport!) He also did a number of New York City scenes. He achieved incredible detail and texture in his prints, all with lines of black and intervening spaces of white. As with Koitsu (yesterday’s artist), I love so many of his prints that I had a very difficult time choosing just one for today, and as with Koitsu, I will likely come back to Wengenroth again. This is called Flat Rock Cove. The texture of the rocks just knocks me over. Some of his prints are so detailed that at first glance they look like photographs, but when you look again, you can see the texture that distinguishes a print from a photo.

Direct capture

Day 4: Japanese print

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Tuesday’s print: After yesterday’s profound downer, today is a day for simply a pretty picture. Tsuchiya Koitsu was a Japanese printmaker active at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. He was an important part of the Shin-Hanga movement–a sort of Ukiyo-e revival. (Ukiyo-e was the classical period of woodblock prints in Japan from late 17th to early 18th century. This style fell out of fashion from the mid 18th century until the Shin-Hanga period in the late 19th. Ukiyo-e literally means “floating world”, as the classical period included many pictures of a sensual lifestyle featuring courtesans. Shin-hanga just means “new prints”.) Koitsu was quite prolific , and I love many of his prints, so I had a hard time choosing one for today. He has done a number of moonlit scenes. In the end, I selected Moonlit Evening at Osaka Castle. I expect I will return to Koitsu and show some of his other lovely prints in the future.

Share-a-print-a-day, day 3: a little heavy

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Today’s print: Warning–not a feel-good or pretty piece. “By Parties Unknown“

Hale Woodruff (1900-1980) was an African-American artist best known as a painter and more specifically a muralist (most famous work, The Armistad Mutiny mural at Talladega College). He was not a prolific printmaker, but I find the 15 or so of his prints I’ve been able to locate compelling. To me, they convey visually and viscerally what feel like powerful points about the African-American experience, including some disturbing but important pieces. The style is figurative but not photo-realistic, which potentiates the impact for me. This woodcut portrays an African-American lynching victim, left on the steps of a church by his murderers. ( I promise not to post heavy stuff like this multiple days in a row.)

Share-a-print-a-day, day 2

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The second in my series of daily print posts: this is the work of John Taylor Arms, a leading figure among American printmakers of his time, (early 20th century) whose primary mode was etching. Most of his etchings were buildings, bridges, and streets, all across the world. He did many prints of French, Italian and British churches and cathedrals. I particularly enjoy this print because it’s not a single building, but rather a broader view of the city of Stockholm looking out from City Hall (the columns in the foreground are part of the City Hall Building). The view includes Gamla Stan (Old Town) as well as the waterfront.

Quotations on viewing beautiful art

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My prior post about sharing a print every day reminded me of a couple of quotations that seem apposite, so I’d thought I’d share them too.

A person should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of their life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.
—Goethe

Three things restore a person’s good spirits: beautiful sounds, sights, and smells.
—Talmud Bavli,Berakhot 57b

Sharing a print a day

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Some of you have noticed a few posts from me over the past months about my new enthusiasm for print art. I’m looking at more and more prints and taking insane pleasure from them. I’ve decided to try sharing a print a day. I’m starting with an Australian-American artist named Richard Bosman, now in his late 70s. My earliest print enthusiasm was for classic black and white etchings and engravings. Bosman mostly prints in bold color, though often with a palette limited to varying shades of a single color. A lot of his earlier works are themed around violence or disasters, sort of pulp fiction style, and I find those works unattractive and unmoving. I enjoy some of his pieces that are nature-themed, landscapes, and architectural and city views. The sea and night skies are often prominent or the central feature. Many of his prints are diptychs, often suggesting serial views, almost like frames in a comic book. The print I’ve selected for today is one of these diptychs called Nighscapes, created in 1992. Enjoy!