Katelyn Crawford led us on an in depth tour of The
1930s in Prints: A Gift to Kansas City from the Woodcut Society in Gallery 214. Transcribed excerpts from Hall tour follow:
Katelyn Crawford [KC]: So I will share a few details, then feel free
to circulate….. What I will point out, to the extent of our conversation we were just having in the library, is that the
exhibition is really organized with the commissioned prints on this
wall [to left] and prints circulated in the exhibition, a small
collection of that much larger body on this wall [to right]. We
have commissioned prints through the Thirties to Thirty-Nine and then
the prints circulated in the exhibition by the Woodcut Society. And
everything in this gallery came in 1935 and 1939, and were given by
Alfred Fowler to the Nelson Adkins.
Arthur Allen Lewis, American, 1873 - 1957
Saint Francis Preaching To The Birds, 1933
Color woodcut on paper
[Image for this post courtesy of Kansas City Public Library, Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City, Missouri, accessed October 2012, Karl Marxhausen]
Viewer:
So many interesting anecdotes.
Katelyn Crawford [KC]: We can just turn and look at the case, one of the wonderful
things I think that we were able to do with this show, is show one full folio as opposed to just having the print detached from
its context. Every commissioned print that was circulated in a folio
of this type, as I was saying before, had an essay about the piece.
KC: Some of the essays were written by the artist, as in this case, in
this instance Allen Lewis. Others were written by curators or
sellers. What is wonderful about this particular folio is that Allen
Lewis designed the entirety of it. He designed the type, he designed
the graphics. And he created his essay. So you have that as a single artistic product, as opposed to something that was sort of
matted in to a bigger folio. So I was really happy to show that
intact in this manner.
KC: Also very cool, this is on the back of it, he indicates that it was printed on a Washington hand press.
KC: Also very cool, this is on the back of it, he indicates that it was printed on a Washington hand press.
Washington hand press
[photo accessed June 19, 2017]
KC: So he is very specific in terms of how it was printed, knowing how it was going to print.
KC: Allen Lewis, okay another cool detail. This is hard because we
are a big group. But Allen Lewis also having designed the typeface
which was used in the New Yorker [magazine]. Which is why for a book he was involved
in the design for, in the early Teens, which is why that is the
[same] typeface we used for [the heading of] the show.
May Aimee Smith, British, 1886 - 1962
Vase of Flowers, 1934
Wood engraving on paper
Katelyn Crawford [KC]: So I’ll point out the May Amiee Smith, which I talked about a
bit, because what a beautiful feature being juxtaposed with a Birgen
Sandzen. This is a really wonderful example of a very specific wood
engraving technique, the use of the multiple tool, which is what
Claire Leighton is drawing attention to. It is pervasive through May
Aimee Smith’s work. It is really the only way to create the
checkered grid in the background. It is a wonderful example, but what
is a difficult and dangerous tool to use in creating wood engravings.
Walter Joseph Phillips, English-born Canadian, 1884 - 1963
Vista Lake, 1932
Wood engraving on paper
[Image for this post courtesy of Kansas City Public Library, Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City, Missouri, accessed October 2012, Karl Marxhausen]
Katelyn Crawford [KC]: There is a wonderful quote in one of the Woodcut Bulletins from
Walter J Phillips about Vista Lake.
It is
essentially an
understatement of friends after creating a color woodcut
before working with an black and white wood engraving. When
I first came to this print I thought it might be over inked. And
though it is interesting I will read this to you. Walter J
Phillips writes:”The proportions of black and white in a woodcut
should not be gauged by rule. Size and purpose besides technical
considerations all have a very common matter….. Black and white
illustrators prefer a light gray effect, approximating that of a page
of type. My print, this print of Vista Lake, is blacker than
either. Too black for book illustration, but I hope not too black to
stand alone.“ So, I think it is interesting that in this first
wider row of woodcuts, that Walter Joseph Phillips worked out what he
was doing…..
Robin Gross: It looks completely different here than when I was
standing up close. It did look like a black, a solid black. But back
here I can see the mountain side, the trees growth.
KC: I am glad I came across that quote again, because it
re-contextualizes this work for me.
Clare Leighton, British 1898 - 1989
No photo
KC: I will point out the Clare Leighton, what we were talking about
upstairs. If you are looking for an extraordinarily proficient wood
engraver, she is your gal. These are beautiful. They are full of
detail. She uses every tool that is available to her to create her
prints. She is just so well known for that in the moment. Which is
also something I found interesting while focused working on this
show.
Norbertine Bresslern-Roth, Austrian, 1891 -1978
Phantoms, 1934
Color woodcut on paper
[Image for this post courtesy of Kansas City Public Library, Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City, Missouri, accessed October 2012, Karl Marxhausen]
KC: You got really really famous print makers like Claire Leighton
juxtaposed with people well known or unknown at all. I am trying to
think of who is like that. Well we had but we don’t have
Bresslern-Roth anymore. So she was quite well known in the moment. So
you have this really wide mix of professionals and amateurs, both
then and today.
John Mallery [JM]: And male and female.
KC:
And male and female. Fifty percent female. Which I almost never
view in any gallery in American Art. And it happens naturally,
because I think really printmaking is so much more acceptable in the
moment. Again we are talking about affordability in the library.
KC: So women had an entree into this medium, and you can
create in your home. You don’t need a press to create these
prints. It is much more
acceptable, and I think that is part of why you see so
many women
in this space.
Elizabeth Norton, American 1887 - 1985
On Guard, 1934
Color woodcut on paper
Mabel Amelia Hewitt, American, 1903 - 1984
Provincetown Backyards, 1934
White-line color woodcut on paper
Grace Martin Taylor, American, 1903 -1995
Charleston Cottages, 1932
White-line color woodcut on paper
Charleston Cottages, 1932
White-line color woodcut on paper
Blanche Lazzell, American 1878 - 1956
No photo
White-line color woodcut on paper
Katelyn Crawford [KC]: The white-line woodcuts are beautiful.
It is a
privilege to feature
the work of Blanche
Lazzell juxtaposed
with the work of two of her students, who she trained in her
Provincetown studio. Again,
Blanche Lazzell, a really really well-known printmaker. An
astonishingly proficient
printmaker.
KC: Who I feel lucky to have it in this show. But very cool to have
her work juxtaposed
with her students. You can see the shift in technique even. Between
what she is doing with that
white-line woodcut
technique, the Provincetown
technique,
and what her students
were doing with it.
Warren Bryan Mack, American 1896 - 1952
No photo
KC: Warren Bryan Mack
prints are an example
of an
amateur in this space, but you would never know it. Because
they are so exceptionally
detailed and beautiful.
KC: He is actually a professor in Agriculture in Pennsylvania, who
made these essentially in his free time. But becomes so talented in
this medium, that he not only circulating his work in these
exhibitions. He becomes a member of the National Academy of Design.
So he does develop a reputation for these woodcuts. And they are
astonishing. I wanted to put one of his works together in the show,
and when I had these prints together in the viewing room everyone who
came in zoomed into these. And wow, just the details. So I thought we
had to have two.
Susan Geringer [SG]: I’m not much of a label reader but I realized
that this was one pass. These are not separate blocks. That kind of
blew my mind. Each one of these areas were inked and then one pass
through the press or through the whatever.
KC: But probably rubbed by hand.
SG: Yes, hand rubbed. Nonetheless, doesn’t that knock you out?
KC:
With these fine white lines separating those areas of color, it should shock you. I did some programming with kids at the Kansas City
Art Institute printmaking department, in conjunction with this show
involved. None of them, the instructors or students. No people could
believe that this could possibly have been done in a single pass. But
what is really wonderful, I think I finally won this argument, after
many many conversations. You see the GRAIN of the BLOCKS, is
uniform all the way through, all of those
patches of color. It really is a single pass. There are not
multiple blocks here. And I don’t think it is a technique I feel a
lot of people use any more. But that is obviously very popular in the
Twenties and Thirties and is pioneered by these Provincetown
print makers.
Viewer:
Is it that more difficult?
KC: So, well, it is a single block, not a multiple. You know, I think
it is difficult in different ways. And I think Lazzell gets this
technique because it seems more tedious from her perspective. You
only have to carve one block.
It creates a very different effect. But at the same time, it takes a great deal of care and precision to ink this block….
As opposed to a line angle and do multiple passes on
the print.
John Mallery [JM]: It is my understanding that to
do a white-line, a print style was developed. It
was trying
to replicate Japanese woodblock printmaking by using only one block.
Also I think I read one used watercolour paints. So they
weren’t actually
drawing on it, but were
painting it on.
KC: I
was getting the idea in
these exhibits they were probably masking areas they
were painting on. Or
working from the center out and
had to mask areas.
SG: Oh you have to.
KC:
Yes.
JM: There is also, she only did editions of five for
each print. And you can actually see, I think the Boston Museum of
Fine Art has another copy of this print and the colors are completely
different.
KC: Yes, I love that. You would get a completely different print
with each pass.
KC: Mabel Amelia Hewitt also had a number of her blocks at the
Cleveland Museum of Art, and so you can actually see some of the
color blending on the block. As well as multiples of her print.
Jessiejo Eckford, American, 1895 - 1941
The Lineman, 1932
Woodcut on paper
Katelyn Crawford [KC]: We are trying to get at things Fowler does not
shy away from. And some of them are social issues. Particularly as
the exhibition circulates, there are a number of prints that deal
with contemporary, political, and social issues. And one example is
Jessiejo Eckford’s The
Lineman, just a beautiful print unto itself. But it is
also something that I think for the contemporary viewer, in that
moment, in that exhibition, would have raised questions about rural
electrification. Thomas Barrett’s Home Brew, again,
it brings up the Prohibition, a very political issue in that moment.
Thomas Barrett, American, 1902 - 1947
Home Brew, 1932
Woodcut on paper
Thomas Nason, American, 1889 - 1971
Wood engraving on paper
[Image
for this post courtesy of Kansas City Public Library, Missouri Valley
Special Collections, Kansas City, Missouri, accessed October 2012, Karl
Marxhausen]
12:39
KC: Thomas Nason’s [print] is a really interesting technique,
something you don’t see very often. He is actually printing a black
and white wood engraving with three blocks, to create the subtle
gradation in his prints. Beautiful and unusual.
Eric Slater, British, 1896 - 1963
The Stackyard, 1938
Color woodcut on paper
[Image for this post, courtesy of https://art.famsf.org/eric-slater/stackyard-1982176, accessed September 9, 2017]
KC: I would point this out this Eric Slater’s The Stack Yard,
in
part because it suggests there was sometimes a
disconnect between the artist and the folio. In that, the folio essay
for this print indicates that Eric Slater hand rubbed each of the two
hundred prints. And so I thought that was odd, but went ahead and put
it in my label. There is no way that can be the case. Now that I have
been looking at it under gallery lighting. You see the impression
lines. This suggests to me it had to have been printed on a press.
And so it was interesting, that they said many years later,
“typically” he hand rubbed the print. And what he said in first
writing the essay that accompanied this print. But with the edition
of two hundred, it was printed on a press.
We can circulate. Thank you all.
Seventeen minutes. Gallery 214.
Spencer Library talk LINK
Fowler's First Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Woodcuts 1933 LINK
