CapeAnn

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]

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.