American Printmakers Of The Twentieth Century

An engaging look at early twentieth-century American printmaking, which frequently focused on the crowded, chaotic, and gritty modern city. In the first half of the twentieth century, a group of American artists influenced by the painter and teacher Robert Henri aimed to reject the pretenses of academic fine art and polite society. Embracing the democratic inclusiveness of the Progressive movement, these artists turned to making prints, which were relatively inexpensive to produce and easy to distribute. For their subject matter, the artists mined the bustling activity and stark realities of the urban centers in which they lived and worked. Their prints feature sublime towering skyscrapers and stifling city streets, jazzy dance halls and bleak tenement interiors—intimate and anonymous everyday scenes that addressed modern life in America. True Grit examines a rich selection of prints by well-known figures like George Bellows, Edward Hopper, Joseph Pennell, and John Sloan as well as lesser-known artists such as Ida Abelman, Peggy Bacon, Miguel Covarrubias, and Mabel Dwight. Written by three scholars of printmaking and American art, the essays present nuanced discussions of gender, class, literature, and politics, contextualizing the prints in the rapidly changing milieu of the first decades of twentieth-century America.

Printmakers today are sustained both by their traditions and by their willingness to embrace new technologies, new mediums, and innovative processes. Over 500 beautiful colour images display the innovative work of 75 talented printmakers and 30 print shops. Traditional printing techniques featured include lithography, intaglio, screen print, and relief, while newer techniques include installation, digital, and fibre, among other forms of new print media. The artists speak for themselves, revealing why they create their art. Consequently, the readers will gain a deeper understanding of their world. These assembled prints reflect the talent of this time and in this place. The artists' mediums, patterns, images, and environments also capture our culture and attempt to foretell our future. This book will be a treasured resource for anyone who appreciates the printmaker's art.

Color woodcut printmaking was not new to Britain, America, or Japan in the late eighteenth century. Yet after Japan was opened to the West in 1854 and deeper cultural exchange began, Japanese prints captured the European and American imagination. The fresh colors, simplicity of materials, and departure from traditional compositions entranced western artists and the public alike. Likewise, Japanese audiences and artists were intrigued by the styles and techniques of western art, which was broadly available in Japan by the end of the nineteenth century. Artists there created images of the strange foreigners and imagined what American cities looked like. By the beginning of the twentieth century, artists were not content to merely imagine what the other side of the world looked like. As prints traveled around the globe for study so did artists, and with them spread the tricks and techniques of color woodblock printmaking as well as appreciation for the prints. Woodblock printmakers in the West started to investigate Japanese processes, and Japanese publishers began to seriously seek out the print market outside of Japan. Important themes began to emerge; scenes of nature and old-fashioned architecture outnumbered modern city views, and images of animals were nearly as popular as those of human figures. Imagery was often idyllic and beautiful, attractive to an international audience. Twentieth-century art, however, moves at a furious pace, and the ferment of the international woodcut style quickly ran its course. Artists appropriated what they needed from the color woodcut, then developed techniques, subjects, and styles in their own ways. An ever-expanding range of prints became indebted to the artists of the previous generation who had reinvigorated woodblock printmaking styles and practices around the world. This full-color catalogue includes many prints from this colorful exhibition and shows how the progression of styles became more similar as international artists learned from and competed with each other, then stylistically diverged as artists of each country took what they learned in new directions. The three essays each focus on the influences and contributions made to the international style by three countries: Japan, Britain, and America.

In 1910, Bertha Jaques co-founded the Chicago Society of Etchers and helped launch a revival of American fine art printmaking. In the decades following, women artists produced some of the most compelling images in U.S. printmaking history and helped advance the medium technically and stylistically. Paths to the Press examines American women artists' contributions to printmaking in the U.S. during the early to mid twentieth century. It features work by internationally and nationally recognized figures such as Isabel Bishop, Louise Nevelson, and Elizabeth Catlett; well-known regional figures such as Chicago artist Bertha Jaques, New Mexico artist Gener Kloss, and Louisiana artist Caroline Durieux; and relatively unknown printmakers such as Chicago artist Fritzi Brod, San Franciscan Pele deLappe, and Texan Mary Bonner. The contributors include David Acton, Nancy E. Green, Melanie Herzog, Helen Langa, Bill North, Mark Pascale, and Mark B. Pohlad.