john mallery - maurice bebb

After the curator's talk on Birger Sandzen, members of the Nelson Atkins Print Society gathered to look at the etchings and dry points of the Oklahoma artist, Maurice R. Bebb 1891-1986. Print Society president John Mallery spoke on Bebb's works. 

According to Mallery, Bebb had a unique printmaking career. He didn’t start drawing until he was in his 50’s and started printmaking full time after he retired as a florist in 1951 (Bebb’s Flowers is still in business in Muskogee, OK, although it is no longer owned by the Bebb family). 

Maurice Bebb was best known for his color multiplate, soft-ground etching and aquatint prints of birds. But he also created wonderful landscapes and architectural prints, many as a result of his two trips to Europe in 1956 and 1958. He created gift prints for the Chicago Society of Etchers, Printmakers Society of California and the Prairie Print Makers.

Mallery gave his presentation on Maurice Bebb and provided unique insight into the artist since he contributed to the catalog's raisonné.

Twenty-eight minute talk on Maurice Bebb's etchings. Birger Sandzen Memorial Gallery on campus of Bethany College, Lindsborg, Kansas

Mallery loaned 80 works from his collection to create the retrospective exhibition.

A collaboration between John Mallery, curator Cori Sherman North and Jim Harbison produced the book "Birds and Beyond: The Prints of Maurice R. Bebb." Now available through Amazon.

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Post: Karl Marxhausen

john mallery - print salon share

   When 22 KC print society members got together to share a print that meant something to each of us, STORIES opened up, and it got exciting in the Spencer Room of the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art. Here is John:

"Once you buy a print, at least for me, it's a web. You start learning about one artist, then you want another artist, you want to know another artist, and it just kind of grows." John Mallery

 

The Nor-Wester  by Leon Pescheret, 

soft ground etching, 1936

More on print HERE 

(courtesy of Annex Galleries, http://www.annexgalleries.com/inventory/detail/CKCS107/Leon-Rene-Pescheret/The-Nor-Wester-aka-Fifty-by-Thirty-Four-in-January, accessed March 30, 2014) 

Mallery introduces his Maurice Bebb print.  Two minute video.

"So this piece is a baby bird, I think it's a robin, but it is almost identical to print by another artist, after Charles E. Heil. Heil was a really well known bird, and did a lot of these baby bird prints. And so I've been researching Heil." John Mallery

More on Heil HERE. (courtesy of Skinner Inc, http://www.skinnerinc.com/search?s=Charles+Emile+Heil, accessed March 30, 2014)

John Mallery is a member of the Nelson Atkins Print Society.

Print Salon Share took place on March 22, 2014.  

Photos and video by Karl Marxhausen