As you may remember, Antonio Frasconi emigrated from Uruguay to the US in 1945. His son quotes Frasconi. ” Antonio used to say that the first thing he did when he got off the boat from Uruguay in 1945, in New Orleans, was go see Duke Ellington and his band play.” Perhaps hyperbolic, but makes a point.
Frasconi created prints of many types, including book covers and illustrations, children’s books of his own, social justice pieces (Pictures with a Point, you might say), and portraits of a number of well-known figures of the 20th century. I find the portraits of people I know about to be spot on. We looked at a portrait of Walt Whitman a while back and I felt he really nailed Whitman. He did portraits of several musicians, including Pablo Casals and Charlie Mingus in addition to Ellington.
Like the vast majority of his work, the Ellington print is a woodcut. He did something very unusual with this print–something I’ve not seen in any other print, of his or other artists. Ellington’s head is typical print art, formed of a complex mass of tiny lines, but the body appears to be plain wood with the grain quite evident. Meaning? Ellington was a sensitive and complex soul, based on a simple and completely natural foundation? Speculations gladly accepted. Ellington’s face is beautifully rendered, suggesting a life rich in emotion and experience.
[I can’t finish writing this without noting a delightful tidbit I came across when doing some research about this print. Frasconi and his wife (both artists, both having written and illustrated children’s books) were close friends with Crockett Johnson and his wife Ruth Krauss. Johnson is well known as the creator of the Harold series of children’s books, initiated by the famous Harold and the Purple Crayon. I only learned about the Harold books as a parent. My introduction to Johnson’s work was the delightful comic strip Barnaby which I came across as a tween just old enough to appreciate that there were multiple levels in the strip. “A boy named Barnaby wishes for a fairy godmother. Instead, he gets a fairy godfather who uses a cigar for a magic wand. Bumbling but endearing, Mr. O’Malley rarely gets his magic to work — even when he consults his Fairy Godfather’s Handy Pocket Guide. The true magic of Barnaby resides in its canny mix of fantasy and satire, amplified by the understated elegance of Crockett Johnson’s clean, spare art.”]
Portrait of Duke Ellington (Woodcut, 1976)
