Martin Lewis, the printmaker who got me started on this enthusiasm, did a lot of interesting things with shadows. I think his many nocturnal scenes set in NYC are really his best work. Today’s print is focused on shadows as the sun is going down in midtown Manhattan. (This scene is apparently set at 34th St and Park Avenue, looking west.)
Lewis employs an interesting combination technique in this print: he creates background texture via an etching (acid) technique called sandpaper ground, but the picture is created by an engraving (sharp stylus) technique called drypoint. I’ll share more of Lewis’ shadow prints in the future.
Sunday. The Christian Sabbath. Charles White was an African-American artist (prints, paintings, mixed media, 1918-1979) who was good friends with well-known African-American poet Margaret Walker. Walker published this beautiful, heart-wrenching, dignified, sad yet fiercely hopeful and determined poem in 1949. (see below) White created this print 10 years later, inspired by the poem. It feels to me a brilliant reflection of the poem, and both feel inspiring.
We have been believers (poem, 1939, Margaret Walker)
We have been believers believing in the black gods of an
old land, believing in the secrets of the seeress and the
magic of the charmers and the power of the devil's evil
ones.
And in the white gods of a new land we have been believers
believing in the mercy of the masters and the beauty of
our brothers, believing in the conjure of the humble
and the faithful and the pure.
Neither the slavers' whip nor the lynchers' rope nor the
bayonet could kill our black belief. In our hunger we
beheld the welcome table and in our nakedness the
glory of a long white robe. We have been believers in
the new Jerusalem.
We have been believers feeding greedy grinning gods, like a
Moloch demanding our sons and our daughters our
strength and our wills and our spirits of pain. We have
been believers, silent and stolid and stubborn and
strong.
We have been believers yielding substance for the world.
With our hands have we fed a people and out of our
strength have they wrung the necessities of a nation.
Our song has filled the twilight and our hope has
heralded the dawn.
Now we stand ready for the touch of one fiery iron, for the
cleansing breath of many molten truths, that the eyes
of the blind may see and the ears of the deaf may hear
and the tongues of the people be filled with living fire.
Where are our gods that they leave us asleep? Surely the
priests and the preachers and the powers will hear.
Surely now that our hands are empty and our hearts too
full to pray they will understand. Surely the sires of
the people will send us a sign.
We have been believers believing in our burdens and our
demigods too long. Now the needy no longer weep and
pray; the longsuffering arise, and our fists bleed
against the bars with a strange insistency.
We have been believers (lithograph, 1949, Charles White)
Armin Landeck (1905-1984) was trained as an architect, but couldn’t find work in that field, which was print art’s gain. He was a contemporary and friend of Martin Lewis, and together with a third print artist they opened a printmaking school, which failed within a year due to the Depression. He and Lewis continued to produce exquisite prints.
In his early work, he delivered beautiful and very detailed and realistic prints, somewhat reminiscent of John Taylor Arms. He began playing with textures and more stylized portrayals of light as his art matured.
I’ve chosen two of his prints which I love. Both display the amazing texture he adopted in the later phase of his career, and Restaurant shows a little bit of his stylized light.
Wow, that guy was amazing. Today’s print is not just beautiful; it’s entitled Serenity, which I felt in need of, and gazing at this print did help. Does it do anything for you?
For print artists from New York City, the subway (as a central part of the urban experience) is a frequent subject. I showed a look at an elevated subway station by a contemporary NYC printmaker named Deann Prosia, and I will feature some subway scenes by Martin Lewis (who did quite a few) in the future. Today’s print is a multicolored screen print of a London tube station by Andy Lovell, whose work I showed early on. The print is circular, bringing out the circular shape of the train tunnels as well as of the station itself.
Gargoyles are carved stone grotesque figures (fantastic or mythical creatures) common in Gothic architecture, used for decoration but especially as decorative parts of a waterspout to direct rainwater away from the building. They are a common feature of Gothic cathedrals, and the tradition has continued in some more modern churches and universities as well. My alma mater is festooned with gargoyles–my attention was drawn to them when I was an undergrad and an RA who was an avid photographer was systematically documenting all the many gargoyles just on the Quad alone (the oldest dorm). Here’s one example:
John Taylor Arms, a well known American etcher from the early 20th century whose work I have show twice before, was fascinated by Gothic architecture, and did etchings of many European cathedrals, including some 10-15 of their gargoyles.
“I call it the ‘Gargoyle Series’ and it is devoted to those queer, grim grotesques, often humorous, sometimes tragic, and always entirely fascinating, which constitute such telling decorative accents on all the great Gothic buildings of France.”
His wife added “. . . they possess a strange harsh beauty of their own and are peculiarly characteristic of one aspect of the age from which they sprang. The builders of that day, spurred on by the consecrated ecstacy of religious fervor to create miracles of loveliness, were human also, and into these imaginative chimeras went such normal emotions as hate and humour, sadness and satire.”
The gargoyle and his quarry (1920, etching, Notre Dame de Paris cathedral)
The detail is exquisite; you can see how the centuries old stone of the gargoyle is pitted with age.
I like landscapes, and choose a lot of them. Portrayals of bodies of water are especially pleasing to me, and seem be disproportionally represented as subjects of 2-D art vs other landscape subjects. Richard Bosman is an Australian-American artist whose work I have featured twice before (https://www.artblog.me/2021/10/09/sharing-a-print-a-day/,https://www.artblog.me/2021/10/31/waterfall-richard-bosman-again-week-4/), both of which were landscapes, of which one was a waterfall. Bosman did a lot of seascapes and other bodies of water, and did them beautifully. Today, I’ve chosen another beautiful print which is NOT a water scene. It’s a colorful print done by etching–a less common technique for multicolored prints. Love to hear opinions.
While perusing prints online and in books looking for inspiration for today’s print, I was struck by a contrast between two pictures of maternal figures male children by two different African-American artists. I’m sharing this pair of prints today.
Elizabeth Catlett (1915-2012) was a visual artist best known for her prints, although later in life she turned to sculpture as well. She was married first to another African-American print artist (Charles White, whose work I will feature one of these days). She and her husband were both awarded a prestigious fellowship to study in Mexico, where she remained after divorcing White, because she found American art trending towards the abstract, whereas her avowed reason for creating was to transmit social messages. Most of her work was devoted to describing and commenting on the Black American experience, especially the experience of Black women. She had a distinguished career as an artist in Mexico, becoming the first female art professor at a national art school.
I have shown prints by John Biggers twice before, first a charming print of a young girl, and then a print of two Black men learning to read. Notably, he was awarded a UNESCO fellowship in the 1950s to visit Africa to learn about African culture and artistic tradition. He was profoundly influenced by this first trip (to Ghana) and several subsequent trips to Africa. He was impressed by the matriarchal nature of Ghanaian society, finding both similarities and differences to the matriarchal character of African-American culture.
On his first trip to Ghana, Biggers drew a picture of his host, art professor Patrick Hulede, together with Hulede’s mother.
Mother and Son (1959, crayon on paper)
Catlett, in 1979, created a print of a maternal figure and a child. It’s not clear if this is mother or grandmother, but the style of the hat suggests an older woman to me..
Two Generations (1979, lithograph)
Two pictures, both of a maternal figure and child: not strictly comparable, as one is adult mother and son, the other likely grandmother and young grandson, and yet I was struck by a comparison and contrast. When I look at the Catlett print, I see on the grandmother’s face weariness, uncertainty and perhaps fear in both her and the child, and what I might characterize as a contracted tone.
In contrast, what I feel in the Biggers drawing is openness, pride, and an expansive tone. Perhaps I’m reasoning backwards from my knowledge of history, but this fits with the ongoing oppression of American Blacks versus (in some parts of Africa which avoided colonial rule) a long-standing tradition of dignified self-government. Am I alone in this? I’d love to hear your reactions.
More and more, I think Stow Wengeroth is my favorite print artist. I haven’t found one of his prints yet that I don’t like, and most I love. He is best known for New England scenes, which comprise the bulk of his oeuvre, but he has a number of striking New York scenes as well, which remind me of Martin Lewis. (In fact, I first learned of Wengenroth, early in my print enthusiasm, when trying to track down a Martin Lewis print I really liked, only to discover it was mislabeled and was actually by Wengenroth. This is today’s print.) Wengenroth was born in Brooklyn, trained in New York, and lived in New York City on and off over most of his lifetime.
Today’s print is of a nocturnal street scene with city skyline in the background, and like all of his work, it is remarkably detailed and evocative. This print takes my breath away as much as any of his classical New England lighthouse scenes. When I look at this scene, I hear Earle Hagen’s Harlem Nocturne in my head–not sure if the scene itself evokes that resonance, or merely the name, or perhaps a combination of the two. (Tangential trivia: Hagen wrote the song as a tribute to Duke Ellington and Johnny Hodges, for the Ray Noble Orchestra. The link is to the original recording by Noble’s orchestra. I didn’t recognize Hagen’s name, but was fascinated to discover he wrote numerous TV theme songs, including two of my all-time faves–the Andy Griffith Show and the Dick van Dyke Show.)
Hale Woodruff was an African-American artist, much of whose work was about conveying the African-American experience. I featured one of his prints, “By Parties Unknown” on day 3 of week 1–a disturbing but important aspect of the black experience in the US. The topic of today’s print is a happier one–jazz music as an expression of African-American culture. I find this print of an accordion player resonates for me. We don’t see an audience–perhaps for this musician, an audience is not why he plays.
