Ann Shafer When I started working for Full Circle, I was curious to see what kinds of art was in its stable, and what I could do to bring any of it to light for you. One painting, which is hanging in Catalyst Contemporary’s “backroom” among other represented artists’ works, I just love. It’s by Damon Arhos and it’s a self-portrait. I’ve always been fascinated by self-portraits and why they are rife throughout art. Let’s look back for a minute before we get to Arhos’ painting. In Western art the first self-portrait is believed to be by Jan van Eyck in 1466. Why then; why him? Likely it has to do with the development of clear, useful mirrors. Until then, there was no way to see ourselves with any accuracy. Those first mirrors must have surprised and delighted. Consider, too, that historically there had been little distinction between individual artists and artisan-craftsmen of guilds, so no cause for taking one’s own likeness. Individualism was not a thing yet. When and who decided that an artist’s work was the product of immense and unusual talent worthy of a signature and individual notice? I’m sure there are other examples, but my printmaking mind goes directly to our old friend Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) since he was a master of self-promotion and marketing. He drew his first self-portrait at age 13—but it is a drawing and its circulation was limited. Hell, he wasn’t even a professional artist at that age. But I’ve always been impressed that by 1500 (age 28) he had the kahunas to portray himself in the guise of Jesus Christ. I mean, honestly. Self-portraits were a way of promoting one’s talent, a calling card if you will. Plus, the model was accessible and cheap. But more than that, they are a means of introspection. Self-portraiture enables artists to look inside, figure out who and what they are, how they want to be seen. Many artists have made them, but how many have really dug in and investigated their own selves in a serial manner? Obviously for me, printmakers come to mind: Rembrandt, Käthe Kollwitz, Max Beckmann, Lovis Corinth, Jim Dine. It’s fascinating to think about what drives us to picture ourselves and to what end. I’d suggest artists use self-portraiture to reflect on what it means to be human, creative, alive. These days, are self-portraits still relevant, especially in this era of selfies, or do they seem old fashioned? What if the self-portrait was only one element in a work that explores more that the physical features of a face? The painting hanging in the backroom at Catalyst Contemporary, which I mentioned at the top of this post, is by Damon Arhos who unfolds queer culture and seeks to promote love and acceptance while investigating social and political issues of gender and sexuality across media. He uses pop culture references fused with the personal to make his work approachable to viewers, and also to be true to himself. In Agnes Moorehead & Me (No. 1/Figure Portrait), 2019, Arhos digitally combined his own face with that of actor Agnes Moorehead as the basis for the painting. The two are merged in a stylistic way with an acidy palette—I love that mustard color. It's one of a series of Moorehead paintings. But why Moorehead? She was an accomplished actor who is now best known as Endora, the mother of the main character in the 1960s television series Bewitched. Endora and her brother Uncle Arthur, played with zeal by gay actor Paul Lynde, became lightning rods for the gay community in subsequent decades due to the characters themselves, but also because of assumptions made about the actors’ personal lives. For Arhos, who would have watched Bewitched in reruns, Uncle Arthur was the first positive, if coded, gay character to come across the television screen. And Endora was full-on glamour and fabulousness. What better character to use to explore one’s identity and challenge gender normativity? In Arhos’ hands, the merged image of two faces is reductive and colorful, playful and serious, objective and subjective. He’s used the idea of a self-portrait but turned it into something that is not recognizable as such. Rather, it becomes a symbol for absorbing different identities into oneself in order to expand the possibility of a more open concept of self, one without boundaries or constraints, norms or rules. It speaks of openness, love, inclusion, everyone’s uniqueness, as well as wishes and hopes for a day when one can be whoever one wants to be. In other words, it’s a masterwork. Damon Arhos (American, born 1967) Agnes Moorehead & Me (No. 1/Figure Portrait), 2019 Acrylic on hardboard panel 40 × 30 × 2 in (101.6 × 76.2 × 5.1 cm) Catalyst Contemporary, Baltimore Jan van Eyck (Netherlandish, c. 1390–1441) Portrait of a Man (Self Portrait?), 1433 Oil on oak 26 x 19 cm (10 ¼ x 7 ½ in) National Gallery, London Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471–1528) Self-Portrait, 1484 Silverpoint 27.5 x 19.6 cm (10 5/8 x 7 5/8 in) Albertina, Vienna Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471–1528) Self-Portrait, 1500 Oil on panel 67.1 cm × 48.9 cm (26.4 in × 19.3 in) Alte Pinakothek, Munich Rembrandt van Rijn (Netherlandish, 1606–1669) Self-Portrait with Saskia, 1636 Etching Plate: 10.5 x 9.4 cm (4 1/8 x 3 11/16 in) Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam Max Beckmann (German, 1884–1950) Self-Portrait, 1914 Drypoint Plate: 239 × 179 mm (9 3/8 x 7 1/16 in) Art Institute of Chicago: H. Simons Fund, 1948.21 Lovis Corinth (German, 1858–1925) Death and the Artist (Tod und Künstler), from the series Dance of Death (Totentanz) 1921, published 1922 Etching, soft-ground etching, and drypoint Plate: 23.9 x 17.9 cm (9 7/16 x 7 1/16 in) Block Museum, Northwestern University, Evanston: Gift of James and Pamela Elesh, 1999.21.13 Käthe Kollwitz (German, 1867–1945) Self-Portrait, 1934 Crayon lithograph Image: 20.5 x 18.5 cm (8 1/16 x 7 3/8 in) National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa Jim Dine (American, born 1935) Berlin 1, 2013 Lithograph 140.4 x 99.2 cm (55 ¼ x 39 in) Albertina, Vienna: Gift of the Artist and Diana Michener, DG2015/68  Damon Arhos (American, born 1967). Agnes Moorehead & Me (No. 1/Figure Portrait), 2019. Acrylic on hardboard panel. 40 × 30 × 2 in (101.6 × 76.2 × 5.1 cm). Catalyst Contemporary, Baltimore.  Jan van Eyck (Netherlandish, c. 1390–1441). Portrait of a Man (Self Portrait?), 1433. Oil on oak. 26 x 19 cm (10 ¼ x 7 ½ in). National Gallery, London.  Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471–1528). Self-Portrait, 1484. Silverpoint. 27.5 x 19.6 cm (10 5/8 x 7 5/8 in). Albertina, Vienna.  Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471–1528). Self-Portrait, 1500. Oil on panel. 67.1 cm × 48.9 cm (26.4 in × 19.3 in). Alte Pinakothek, Munich.  Rembrandt van Rijn. Netherlandish, 1606–1669). Self-Portrait with Saskia, 1636 Etching. Plate: 10.5 x 9.4 cm (4 1/8 x 3 11/16 in). Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam.  Max Beckmann (German, 1884–1950). Self-Portrait, 1914 . Drypoint. Plate: 239 × 179 mm (9 3/8 x 7 1/16 in). Art Institute of Chicago: H. Simons Fund, 1948.21.  Lovis Corinth (German, 1858–1925). Death and the Artist (Tod und Künstler), from the series Dance of Death (Totentanz) 1921, published 1922. Etching, soft-ground etching, and drypoint. Plate: 23.9 x 17.9 cm (9 7/16 x 7 1/16 in). Block Museum, Northwestern University, Evanston: Gift of James and Pamela Elesh, 1999.21.13.  Käthe Kollwitz (German, 1867–1945). Self-Portrait, 1934. Crayon lithograph. Image: 20.5 x 18.5 cm (8 1/16 x 7 3/8 in). National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.  Jim Dine (American, born 1935). Berlin 1, 2013. Lithograph. 140.4 x 99.2 cm (55 ¼ x 39 in). Albertina, Vienna: Gift of the Artist and Diana Michener, DG2015/68.
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Ann Shafer Sometimes an artist you really want to hang on the museum’s walls is only represented in the collection by minor works (in both visual impact and size). Don’t get me wrong, I love a small work—I had a running list of tiny prints that I thought would make a great show—but when it comes to contemporary works on paper, they need to be able to “hold the wall” because of the size of the galleries and the scale of the non-paper works they may hang near. My wish list included several artists in this category, most notably John Baldessari, Kara Walker, William Kentridge, and Kerry James Marshall. The museum’s collection has works on paper by these artists, but few with substantial wall power. I chased Baldessari’s print, Roller Coaster, 1989, three times. The first time I saw it on the wall at the IFPDA Print Fair in the booth of the work’s publisher, Brooke Alexander. On opening night, the work was already on hold for a collector. The second time, it came up at auction. I got permission to bid on it and lost out to another bidder. The third time was at the print fair again, and again, I was too late. Baldessari is a tough nut to crack. Irreverent is the best word I can think of to describe his work. But there is just something about Roller Coaster: the shaped print, the way the arc of the roller coaster moves from one end of the sheet to the other, the wall power, its size. It is so easy to like. I also chased William Kentridge’s powerful Casspirs Full of Love, ironically also from 1989, multiple times. Two different dealers offered it to us multiple times over the years, but the price was just high enough to be out of reach. If only I could have said yes. Whereas the Baldessari is clever and fun, the Kentridge is shocking. Severed heads appear to be stacked in a cabinet of some sort. MoMA’s web site helps us parse it out: “The title of this work refers to a message sent from mothers to sons on a popular radio program for South African troops: ‘this message comes from your mother, with Casspirs full of love.’ Casspirs are armored military vehicles; their name is an anagram for CSIR (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research) and SAP (South African Police), the organization that developed them. These vehicles, designed for international military operations, were deployed against black township communities in South Africa during states of emergency imposed by the apartheid government.” I think you can agree that both have wall power for different reasons. I could think of an exhibition with each as its centerpiece. Obviously not the same show. Well, unless one was looking at the year 1989. John Baldessari (American, 1931–2020) Rollercoaster, 1989 Aquatint, photogravure printed in black, green, and red Sheet: 39 × 67 1/2 in. (99 × 171.5 cm.) Published by Brooke Alexander William Kentridge (South African, born 1955) Casspirs Full of Love, 1989 Drypoint and engraving with roulette Sheet: 65 3/8 x 38.7/16 in. (166 x 97.6 cm.) Plate: 58 9/16 x 32 in. (148.8 x 318 cm.) Published by the artist and David Krut  John Baldessari (American, 1931–2020). Rollercoaster, 1989. Aquatint, photogravure printed in black, green, and red. Sheet: 39 × 67 1/2 in. (99 × 171.5 cm.). Published by Brooke Alexander.  William Kentridge (South African, born 1955). Casspirs Full of Love, 1989. Drypoint and engraving with roulette. Sheet: 65 3/8 x 38.7/16 in. (166 x 97.6 cm.); plate: 58 9/16 x 32 in. (148.8 x 318 cm.). Published by the artist and David Krut. Ann Shafer November 11, 2020, is the 102nd anniversary of the end of World War I. It is known as Armistice Day in the US—generically now called Veterans’ Day—and in the UK it is called Remembrance Day. (Brits wear those red poppies pins to mark the day.) I believe remembering and knowing our shared history is critical. Ignorance too easily leads to repeating actions that could/should be avoided. World War I was a tremendously deadly conflict, and its devastation should never be forgotten. Exact numbers of the dead are not known—even though the war was the first in which soldiers were issued identification tags—but estimates range from 9 million to 22 million deaths, including both military and civilian. Marking days like this reminds us of how much we had to lose and how much we gained. And how fragile it all is. There are many artists on both sides who created work in response to the war, but I want to introduce you to British artist and World War I veteran, Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson (1889–1946), whose prints I always wanted to acquire for the museum. When you work in a vast collection of prints, one gets lulled into a sense of “we must have something by X artist.” It always surprised me to find the collection lacked anything or anyone. But the BMA’s collection has no prints by Nevinson, whose works from the war period I find to be stunning. Timing and inflated prices often prevent curators from filling gaps—it’s super frustrating. In my time at the museum several artists’ prints that were on our wish list had prohibitively high prices: Provincetown white-line woodcuts by Blanche Lazell, early American modernist etchings by Edward Hopper, color linoleum cuts by the Grosvenor School, color prints by Mary Cassatt, etchings by master-of-urban-scenes Martin Lewis. The same is true about prints by Nevinson; his prices were out of range for our acquisition budget. Ah well. Let me show you why his prints are on my list. Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson, sometimes recorded as C.R.W. Nevinson and called Richard, was an artist who made his mark with scenes of World War I, a conflict in which he took part. He spent the beginning of the war in the Friends’ Ambulance Unit tending wounded French and English soldiers. He was appointed an official war artist in 1917. In addition to prints, he also created paintings. Artistically, Nevinson’s early friendship with the founder of Italian Futurism, Filippo Tomasso Emilio Marinetti, had an immense influence on the former’s style, particularly in its machine-age aesthetic. He also befriended, and then had a falling out with, radical writer and artist Wyndham Lewis who formed the Vorticists group. Nevinson, whose sensibility was a natural fit for the Vorticists, was banned from the group. No matter. After making some remarkably modernist, powerful, and beautiful prints, eventually Nevinson decided that mode of image making wasn’t adequate to convey the horrors of war and he began to create imagery in a more realist manner. It’s always curious when an artist’s stylistic trajectory seems to travel backward but take a look at these prints from the ’teens and judge for yourself. Ann Shafer The third fair during New York Print Week is the Satellite Fair, which includes exhibitors from across the spectrum. Maybe this is why my choices today are so numerous and run from 1895 to yesterday. Maybe this shows I’m a bit ADD, but that is why being a curator of prints, drawings, and photographs was so perfect for me. One can take a deep dive into an artist or subject, then pop back up and move on to something else, something completely different. One can be all over the place, and in fact, one has to be to manage a collection of any size. I always said I had my specialties in works on paper—British watercolors of the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, American works on paper from Homer to early-twentieth century Modernism, and modern and contemporary prints and photographs—but that really I am a generalist. How to account for me leading off with a French work from 1895 and ending with a print about the Coronavirus? Well, I love a good print of great design and execution, no matter the source. I love early-twentieth century urban scenes, mid-century abstraction, biting social criticism, a beautifully executed etching and aquatint (of any subject), and pure beauty. So here are my selections from the Satellite Fair. New York Print Week, even if experienced remotely, is the most wonderful time of the year. Ann Shafer The second fair we never miss during New York Print Week is the Editions and Artists Books fair, known as E/AB. If the IFPDA fair is the grandfather of print fairs, E/AB, managed by the Lower East Side Print Shop (no small task), is the scrappy twenty something hipster. It attracts younger, newly established, and smaller shops as vendors, along with more established ones that prefer E/AB’s hipper vibe. That means you may not be as familiar with many of the artists on offer, but you’ll likely find something at a lower price point. In other words, it’s a great place to start as a new collector. Martin Mazorra UnMute Yourself, 2020 Letterpress 14 7/8 x 20 7/8 inches Printed by Martin Mazorra Planthouse Gallery Vladimir Cybil Charlier What happens to a dream deferred (Dream Deferred portfolio), 2020 Archival Inkjet print with screenprint Sheet: 18 x 12 inches Image: 15 x 10 inches Printed by Pepe Coronado FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture Monument Quilt Project, 2020 Fabric and thread 96 x 96 inches Booklyn John Alexander Ship of Fools, 2020 Polymer gravure with chine collé Image: 21 ¾ x 17 inches Sheet: 30 x 22 inches Printed and published by Flatbed Press Parastou Forouhar (Iranian, b. 1962) Water Mark, 2015 Two-color lithograph and nine-colors pigmented over-beaten flax pulp paint on abaca sheets 37 ¼ × 22 ½ inches Published by the Brodsky Center at PAFA, Philadelphia Victoria Burge Nets I-VII, 2019 Suite of seven lithographs Each sheet: 12 3/4 x 10 inches Printed and published by Deb Chaney Editions Nicola López The Vast Sky, 2018 Accordion-fold volume with screenprints 13 3/4 x 9 7/8 inches Printed and published by Anémona Editores and TPT Gráfica Alison Saar Copacetic, 2019 Portfolio of eight multi-block linoleum cuts on handmade Japanese Hamada Kozo paper Each sheet: 19 1/2 x 18 inches Printed by Erin McAdams, Harry Schneider, Max Valentine, and assisted by Wendy Li Published by Mullowney Printing Raven Chacon (Navajo) Horse Notations, 2019 Six-color lithograph 23 3/4 x 30 inches Printed by Judith Baumann Published by Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts Martin Wilner Arkopoly, 2017–18 Polymer photogravure (two plates printed with 35 colors plus black) 23 1/2 x 23 1/2 inches Printed by Jennifer Mahlman Co-published by Eminence Grise Editions and Hales Gallery (London) Marion MacPhee Diving Humpback, 2016 Etching printed in black and blue, a la poupee 64 x 106.5 cm Printed by the artist Glasgow Print Studio Walton Ford Pestvogel, 2016 Six-plate aquatint etching with hard ground, soft ground, spit bite, sugar lift, and dry point Plate: 28 x 22 inches Sheet: 40 x 30 3/4 inches Printed by Wingate Studio Published by Kasmin Gallery Steve DiBenedetto Receiver, 2019 Softground etching, drypoint, engraving, and aquatint Sheet: 38 x 30 7/8 Plate: 30 x 24 inches Printed and published by Harlan & Weaver Mark Thomas Gibson Banquet, 2016 Etching and aquatint 13 1/2 x 15 3/4 inches Printed by Burnet Editions Published by IPCNY Dario Robleto The First Time, The Heart (First Pulse, Flatline), 2017 Diptych: lithograph on hand-flamed and sooted paper, lithotine lift and shellac Each: 11 1⁄2 x 14 1⁄4 inches Printed and published by Island Press, Washington University in St. Louis Astrid Bowlby Everything, 2016 Stone lithograph 30 x 40 inches Printed by Peter Haarz Published by Petrichor Press Deb Sokolow Willem de Kooning. Geniuses are nothing if not complicated in their methods and motivations, 2015 Accordion-bound volume with graphite, acrylic, ink and collage Closed: 9 x 6 inches; open: 9 x 44 inches Western Exhibitions Sebastian Black Composition with Registration Marks and Other Marks, 2017 Five-plate aquatint etching with burnishing, soap ground, and spit bite Plate: 24 x 18 inches Sheet: 31 3/4 x 24 1/2 inches Printed and published by Wingate Studio Ann ShaferThere is a holiday song with a lyric, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year,” that runs through my mind every October during New York Print Week. Encompassing three major print fairs—the IFPDA Print Fair, the Editions and Artists Books fair, and the Satellite Fair—there is a cornucopia of wonderful prints to see. There is, of course, also a lot of attendant programming, dinners, and socializing. Oh, and we always try to hit various galleries and museum exhibitions. It’s a super busy week, exhausting and energizing, and it’s so fun to catch up with all the artists, printers, and publishers we’ve gotten to know over the years. Because of the pandemic, New York Print Week 2020 is occurring virtually. While the IFPDA has really stepped up to the plate with a month’s worth of daily virtual artist talks and studio tours, and each fair has set up online viewing rooms, there is nothing like being there in person. I will always believe that one must see works of art in person to really absorb them accurately. As a curator on the hunt for contemporary (ish) works on paper, New York Print Week is one-stop shopping. At the IFPDA fair alone there are usually ninety vendors. I thought it would be fun to pick out favorite works from each fair. The caveat being, of course, that seeing the works in person might change my mind. Here’s a group from the IFPDA Print Fair in no particular order. Derrick Adams Self Portrait on Float, 2019 Woodblock, gold leaf, collage 40 × 40 in (101.6 × 101.6 cm) Tandem Press Richard Long Speed of the Sound of Loneliness, 2014 A two panel carborundum relief, both panels printed in Black/Ultramarine Blue ink mix 47 3/4 × 152 3/4 in (121.3 × 388 cm) Jonathan Novak Contemporary Art William Kentridge Telephone Lady, 2000 Linoleum cut 85 × 47 in (215.9 × 119.4 cm) Gallery Neptune & Brown Shahzia Sikander Portrait of the Artist, 2016 One in a suite of four etchings 27 × 21 in (68.6 × 53.3 cm) Pace Prints Jacob Hashimoto Tracing the Ever-fragile Balance of Dreamless Silence: This Unruly Forest, These Imaginings, and the Final Exhalation, 2019 Mixografia print on handmade paper 34 1/2 × 61 1/2 in (87.6 × 156.2 cm) Mixografia Peter Milton Interiors VI: The Train from Munich, 1991 Resist-ground etching and engraving, 20 × 35 5/8 in (50.8 × 90.5 cm) The Old Print Shop Walton Ford Benjamin's Emblem, 2000 Etching 44 3/16 × 30 3/8 in (112.2 × 77.2 cm) Susan Sheehan Gallery Richard Diebenkorn High Green, Version I, 1992 Color spit bite and soap ground aquatints with soft ground and hard ground etching and drypoint 52 × 33 in (132.1 × 83.8 cm) Crown Point Press Tom Marioni Drawing a Line, 2012 Drypoint with plate tarnish printed in sepia and black 54 × 16 in (137.2 × 40.6 cm) Crown Point Press Tauba Auerbach Mesh Moire I-VI, 2012 Suite of six color softground etchings on Somerset white paper 86 × 98 in (218.4 × 248.9 cm) Carolina Nitsch Contemporary Art Charles Gaines Numbers and Trees, Tiergarten Series 3: Tree #1, April, 2018 Color aquatint and spitbite aquatint with printed acrylic box. 41 1/4 × 32 × 3 1/2 in (104.8 × 81.3 × 8.9 cm) Paulson Fontaine Press Ann Shafer For all that museums are going through at the moment—financial hardships due to covid-19 closures, reckoning with their ingrained colonialism, rewriting the art historical canon to include women and BIPOC, reckoning with a spate of questionable deaccessioning, dealing with issues of social justice and diversity both externally in programming and internally with staff composition—I still believe in the transformative power of art. If you have been following along, you know that there have been three times in my life when my jaw dropped in response to a work of art. The first was in a college art history class looking at a slide of an Edouard Manet still life of lilacs in a vase. The second time was in the tiny garden behind Charles Demuth’s Lancaster home over which an enormous church steeple looms. I've written posts about both of these moments; hope you check them out. The third time my jaw dropped was while standing in front of Diego Velasquez’s Las Meninas, 1656, at the Prado in Madrid. Of the three moments, this was the most surprising occurrence for me. My love for Demuth is such that I spent my senior year in college writing my thesis on him. And who doesn’t love a beautiful still life by Manet? My reaction to Las Meninas surprised me because I have no training in art of the seventeenth century, have never taken a class in Spanish art of any sort, and only know what I’ve read in the skimmiest way possible. The combination of my lack of knowledge and my reaction to it means, for me, Velasquez’s painting is the ultimate example of transformative art. I have avoided writing about the painting because of my lack of knowledge. There’s a lot to pull apart while attempting to get at its meaning and why it is visually so spectacular. But recently a link to an article about it crossed my feed. So, here’s that article, which I encourage you to check out. Also, if you ever find yourself in Madrid, don’t miss Las Meninas at the Prado. Diego Velasquez (Spanish, 1599-1660) Las Meninas, 1656 Oil on canvas 318 x 276 cm (125.2 x 108.7 in) Museo del Prado, Madrid  Diego Velasquez (Spanish, 1599-1660). Las Meninas, 1656. Oil on canvas. 318 x 276 cm (125.2 x 108.7 in). Museo del Prado, Madrid. Ann Shafer Ok. It has been a seriously long time since I’ve been able to not only write about art but also offer a chance to see it with me, in private, in person (masks required, obvi). Shoot me a message if you are intrigued. So, no more looking backward, only forward. As a part of my new gig, I’m writing about the exhibitions mounted at Full Circle’s two galleries, Catalyst Contemporary (523 North Charles Street) and Full Circle Gallery (33 East 21st Street). Here’s my first go at the exhibition at Catalyst by Baltimore County retired doctor Jed Smalley, which closes on October 31. Where do control and chance meet? Arthur Jedson Smalley is an artist who is deeply committed to this balancing act. In fact, it is an essential part of his creativity. Smalley makes sculptures in wood, using both found and milled lumber, which form organic Möbius strips, and paintings of landscapes using latex house paints dripped from brushes attached to long sticks. The tension between the artist’s hand and the inherent tendencies of the medium tips one way or the other within the course of making the work. It is only in the struggle between artist and material that Smalley is uncomfortable enough to be comfortable with the results. Smalley starts his paintings with a particular landscape in mind (often Baltimore County), one that he is deeply familiar with and visits often to study its forms and the way light plays across its features (only very rarely does he paint en plein air). Working with the painting surface (he uses artists’ board not canvas) lying on the floor, Smalley drips colors onto the board, all the while trying to control what that daub or drip does. Because of the length of the tool of application and the viscosity of the paints, Smalley must embrace the pooling of the paint, accepting and counting on any accidents. He says, “paintings are compromises,” and admits that he tries to paint from his subconscious, letting go of any predetermined ideas save for the generalized landscape giving it visual structure. First, several spots of color are placed to begin the framework of the image. Next begins a ballet of color choices and placements of subsequent drips, which must interlock with the one to which it is adjacent. Accidents are accepted and desired. While it may sound counterintuitive—would not an artist wish for complete control of his/her facility—for Smalley, it is precisely this tension that enables the works to be made. He admits that every attempt at a more conventional method of accomplishing a landscape falls flat. In the battle for control, beautiful scenes emerge composed of daubs of colors that at once suggest specific and generalized landscapes. Smalley is an exceptional colorist. His palette is widely varied and works perfectly. The landscapes’ dappled light achieved through drips of colors makes the paintings sparkle and creates movement. They elicit a feeling of walking through woods on a bright sunny day. The paintings are in the vein of the French Pointillists George Seurat and Paul Signac in that daubs of formless paint and juxtaposed colors coalesce to create shadows, tree limbs, and streams. They take pure advantage of the human brain’s ability to fill in the gaps and change depending on one’s distance from the surface. While one can focus on the composition that reveals itself, one can also shift focus to the negative spaces between the daubs, changing the composition yet again. At once abstract and completely readable as landscape, Smalley’s works are pure delight belying the struggle and tension that goes into their creation. While the artist’s struggle between control and accident combine to offer atmospheric walks in the woods in the paintings, the sculptures are concerned with different aspects of chance. Each sculpture forms a self-contained loop of wood. Sometimes natural segments of thick branches are joined in tight, sinewy jumbles, their construction masked. Sometimes blocks of 4-x-4-inch pieces of lumber are cut in trapezoidal shapes and joined without hiding the sculpture’s construction. Depending on the angles of the cuts, the next piece added takes the form in a new direction. In their continuousness, they are versions of a Möbius strip in which the beginning and end are one and the same. They are at once organic and constructed, natural and unnatural, beautiful and rough, whimsical and serious. The surfaces of Smalley’s paintings glisten and are tactile. They change depending on one’s viewpoint and are both light and airy and dense and saturated. The sculptures are elegant and curvy, disjointed and smooth, confounding and gentle in their loveliness. Bursting with potential energy, they exhibit a variant on the tension present in the paintings. Smalley’s talents are fully on display in this body of work. The works are worth the time to absorb their beauty comprised of surprising elements that come together in symphony. Ann Shafer Recently I wrote about editions and meta prints focusing on two works: Bill Thompson’s Edition and Fiona Banner’s Book 1/1. The latter work was published by the artist and the Multiple Store, which is no longer in business. In fact, finding an image of Book 1/1 for the post necessitated digging into the Wayback Machine run by web.archive.org with which one can find archived web sites. Very useful. The Multiple Store was founded in 1998 by Nicholas Sharp and Sally Townsend (it shuttered in 2016). According to the founders: “Our aims were to commission new work by some of the best contemporary British artists, to encourage a culture of collecting by selling our editions as inexpensively as possible; and to provide opportunities for artists to explore new materials and processes.” That’s a mission I can get behind. Back when Ben Levy and I ran the BMA’s Baltimore Contemporary Print Fair, we searched for possible participants at several print fairs that occur in New York in the fall. Ben and I were eager to bring in vendors that made or published the works they had on offer. That way, the public would have the opportunity to speak directly with the people who made the art while fulfilling the museum’s goal to educate people. At one of the New York fairs, the Editions and Artist Books Fair, we had the pleasure of meeting Nicholas Sharp who was showing the multiples published by the Multiple Store. Nick was charming and devoted to his mission, and we loved the objects they published. Ben and I tried our best to convince him to come to Baltimore for our Print Fair, but we could never make it work, and Baltimore missed out. The Multiple Store published intriguing multiples—the sculptural version of print editions. One stand-out object was a kaleidoscope by Yinka Shonibare MBE who is best known for his tableaux featuring mannequins dressed in western costumes made out of Dutch wax-printed cotton that appears to be African in style. That substitution plays into Shonibare’s investigation of the tangled economic and political interrelationships between Africa and Europe. For the Multiple Store, Shonibare created a kaleidoscope, a nod to nineteenth-century Victoriana. The exterior is decorated with a pattern echoing the Dutch fabrics he uses in his larger works. And that’s where the subtleness ends. The shiny brass top, where a viewer looks into the kaleidoscope, is in the form of the tip of a phallus, all bright and shiny. The image that is splintered within is an edited version of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus in which the figure of Venus has been replaced with a rather well-endowed Black male nude. It’s a peep show, if you will, and a total turn-about of the male gaze. Shonibare said of the work: “I intended this piece as both playful and serious: it looks like an adult sex toy, but it is also a serious comment on patriarchy, and the objectification of the female body in the media, by what film theorist Laura Mulvey called the ‘male gaze.’ Kaleidoscope was meant as ‘one for the ladies’…though I think it may appeal to some gentlemen too.” I was so sorry Nick felt he had to close the Multiple Store. As it was a side project for the lawyer, perhaps one can understand. But still. Yinka Shonibare MBE (British-Nigerian, born 1962) Published by The Multiple Store Kaleidoscope, 2014 Cast brass, digitally printed cotton, lacquer, mirror, lens, glass, perspex, oil 80 x 80 x 270 mm. (10 ½ x 3 x 3 in.) Yinka Shonibare MBE (British-Nigerian, born 1962) How to Blow up Two Heads at Once (Ladies), 2006. Two life-size mannequins, two guns, Dutch wax-printed cotton, shoes, and leather riding boots Overall 63 x 96: 1/2 x 48 inches, each figure: 63 x 61 x 48 inches Collection of Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA. Photo by Stephen White, © Yinka Shonibare MBE, courtesy the artist, James Cohan Gallery, New York and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London  Yinka Shonibare MBE (British-Nigerian, born 1962). Published by The Multiple Store. Kaleidoscope, 2014. Cast brass, digitally printed cotton, lacquer, mirror, lens, glass, perspex, oil. 80 x 80 x 270 mm. (10 ½ x 3 x 3 in.).  Yinka Shonibare MBE (British-Nigerian, born 1962). Published by The Multiple Store. Kaleidoscope, 2014. Cast brass, digitally printed cotton, lacquer, mirror, lens, glass, perspex, oil. 80 x 80 x 270 mm. (10 ½ x 3 x 3 in.).  Ben Levy enjoying Shonibare's Kaleidoscope at the Editions and Artists Books fair, 2014.  Yinka Shonibare MBE (British-Nigerian, born 1962). How to Blow up Two Heads at Once (Ladies), 2006. Two life-size mannequins, two guns, Dutch wax-printed cotton, shoes, and leather riding boots. Overall 63 x 96: 1/2 x 48 inches, each figure: 63 x 61 x 48 inches. Collection of Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA. Photo by Stephen White, © Yinka Shonibare MBE, courtesy the artist, James Cohan Gallery, New York and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London. Ann ShaferLet's talk about editions, the idea of creating a limited number of a particular work of art—generally used in prints and multiples. The practice of limiting the number means that multiple collectors can possess the same image, that as the number dwindles an artificial rarity may create demand, and that artists control dissemination. (Know that the idea of a limited edition is a relatively new one, dating to the late-nineteenth century.) People often ask about editions and how it is that if there are more than one print, why are they considered original works of art and not copies. Basically, it has to do with the artist’s intention. (I can point you to the definition established by the Print Council of America here: https://printcouncil.org/defining-a-print/.) Printmakers naturally take advantage of the medium’s implicit multiplicity, but can the edition itself be the subject of an edition? How meta can it get? I like an artist who is aware of the structure of the enterprise. But is meta too clever, too cheeky? Is it possible to be funny, smart, aesthetically pleasing, and collectible? Check out this etching by Bill Thompson, which was printed by Jim Stroud at Center Street Studio. The print, Edition, 2015, is a minimalist composition featuring a simple grid. Inside of each square is a fraction running from 1/45 to 45/45—these reflect the numbers in the edition. There are also squares for one BAT (bon à tirer—meaning “good to print,” the proof an artist approves to proceed with printing), 1AP to 5AP (artist’s proofs), and 1PP to 5PP (printer’s proofs). These last few are outside the official edition of 45, but they often find their way into the market eventually. It may seem like they are special in some way, but this is artificial. For the most part, master printers will produce nearly identical impressions to such a degree that a print from the numbered edition will be no different from any of the proofs. Since all the possible impressions are represented within Thompson’s print itself, instead of the number getting handwritten below the image as is usual, in this case the artist circled each number in succession. So, the hand addition of the colored pencil circles indicates the number in sequence and also becomes the focal point of the image. It’s a visually elegant work, and its meta-ness is cheeky. (Impressions of Thompson’s prints are available here: http://www.centerstreetstudio.com/pur…/bill-thompson-edition). A second meta work is Fiona Banner’s Book 1/1, 2009, published by the now defunct The Multiple Store. The work is more print than book for it is simply bold black letters on a single piece of mirror-finish card. The type spells out the ISBN number of the books—each individual book, that is. Each ISBN (International Standard Book Number) number is registered—it’s an official publication full of nothing, containing only its registration information. Because books are usually reproduced in great numbers, that each of Banner’s books is unique plays against the norm. In addition, the mirror finish performs an important role. Because the viewer necessarily sees him/herself in the reflection, they are automatically the subject of the image/book. In addition, because of the reflective surface, the books are also impossible to photograph and reproduce well; their uniqueness is even more firmly established. Any image of said book will necessarily be different depending on the reflections caught in the process. Banner’s work is a published and registered book, without contents, unreproducible, unique, and reflects the viewer. Talk about meta! Bill Thompson (American, born 1957) Printed and published by Center Street Studio Edition (BAT), 2015 Etching with chine collé Sheet: 546 x 565 mm. (21 ½ x 22 ¼ in.) Plate: 318 x 368 mm. (12 ½ x 14 ½ in.) Fiona Banner (British, born 1966) Published by The Vanity Press and The Multiple Store Book 1/1, 2009 Block print on mirror card 685 x 492 mm. (27 x 19 ½ in.)  Bill Thompson (American, born 1957). Printed and published by Center Street Studio. Edition (BAT), 2015. Etching with chine collé. Sheet: 546 x 565 mm. (21 ½ x 22 ¼ in.); plate: 318 x 368 mm. (12 ½ x 14 ½ in.).  Fiona Banner (British, born 1966). Published by The Vanity Press and The Multiple Store. Book 1/1, 2009. Block print on mirror card. Sheet: 685 x 492 mm. (27 x 19 ½ in.). Ann ShaferIs the Enlightenment really the Endarkenment? It’s one thing to strive to understand and organize all human knowledge, and it is another thing to use that knowledge to justify the enslavement of a people and the subjugation of women. Stay with me here. On a recent, long drive, we started listening to Isabel Wilkerson’s new book, Caste. The recording is fourteen hours long, and we’ve barely scratched the surface. In fact, we’re still in the eight-pillars-of-the-caste-system part that sets up the whole thing. It’s dense, intense, and important. One of the pillars was an ah-ha for me. It has to do with heredity, the idea that one’s caste is inherited through family. In most cultures, this placement into a certain level of society follows the patriarchal line. In America, however, from its earliest days, caste was passed down through the matriarchal line. This turnabout was necessary because it enabled the upper caste (white men/slave owners) to rape enslaved women in order to produce yet more slaves that could add to the labor force or be sold for a profit. Rape as a profit center. It makes me sick. Maybe I’m naïve for being surprised, but that one really got to me. WTAF?!? After the trip, a friend/colleague mentioned the artist Joscelyn Gardner's portfolio, Creole Portraits III: bringing down the flowers…, 2009–11, and I knew it would make a powerful post. It also felt like no coincidence that she told me about the works at the same time I’m deep in Wilkerson’s book. I have never resisted talking about and introducing you to works that pack a political punch. Hold on to your hats, here we go. First, know that Gardner’s portfolio intertwines information gleaned from the papers of an English slaveholder and amateur botanist named Thomas Thistlewood who settled in Jamaica in 1750. His papers are well known and are one of the fullest and most extensive accountings of that period, including everyday matters having to do with the slave business, the weather, horticulture and botany, crops, and financial issues (they are held by Yale’s Beinecke Library). In addition, the papers include a meticulous accounting of his violent sexual transactions. Scholar Alison Donnell (in an exhibition catalogue featuring Gardner’s work from 2012) uses the term transaction because Thistlewood recorded in excruciating detail some 3,852 acts of intercourse with 138 women. He was no sex addict. Donnell goes on to pose these pertinent questions: “How do we represent the violence and violation of slavery without repeating its spectacular effect? How do we speak about subjects lost to history and yet not entirely unknown? How can we make visible the systems of representation that support an unequal distribution of authority, knowledge, and power?” Enter the artist Joscelyn Gardner. She grew up in Barbados where her family dates back to the seventeenth century—one can only assume they were land- and slaveowners—and now calls London, Ontario, home. In her portfolio of twelve lithographs printed on frosted Mylar (lending a particular luminescence), each portrait includes the head of an African woman seen from behind showcasing an elaborately braided hairstyle, a complicated torture device, and a delicate botanical specimen. The delicacy and intricacy of the rendering draws viewers in; it is an oft-used trope that usually works. In traditional portraiture, the subject faces the viewer, often confronting them. Portraits were created to showcase the sitter’s stature, knowledge, and wealth. Yes, these would be mostly men. Women were often portrayed as allegorical figures (nude, naturally), or in relation to the men in their lives. Gardner’s subjects have their backs turned to us, preventing us from knowing who they are individually. This does several things. It not only subverts the male gaze and objectification, but also allows the artist to portray women whose identities are lost to history. For me, they become symbols of the strength and determination of enslaved women without the spectacle of their circumstances. This seems especially appropriate in this instance because the artist herself is white. (This is a much larger debate that requires its own post.) In Gardner’s hands, the hair is the manner of capturing character as she bears witness to lives lived. The elaborate hairstyles of meticulous braiding mark each as an individual, but also reflect the sisterhood required to accomplish them. These hairstyles are based on contemporary examples tying the past to the present and acknowledging hair’s position as a signifier of personhood, status, and position, as well as being a key means of individual expression. But remember, hair is also a fundamental means of differentiating race and class. During slavery, the worn instruments of torture were visible manifestations of control and systematic enforcement of authority. Interestingly, depictions of bucolic plantation life appear in contemporaneous artworks, but few examples exist showing the habitual violence necessary for keeping the system operational. More truthful imagery begins to surface with the Abolitionist movement at the end of the eighteenth century, but the subjects are faceless—a continued effort to dehumanize slaves. This is surprising when one considers the power of postcards of lynchings produced in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that were widely shared and had the effect of reinforcing that terror. Perhaps the pastoral images of exotic plantations for a European audience naturalized the injustices that were codified into laws making men and women the property of others. By subverting accepted narratives of the era, Gardner recognizes slave women, gives them a voice and a presence. Representation matters. As the world became fascinated with classification of things, the definitions of words, the knowledge of how things worked, of Enlightenment, was this all code for “we have to justify the subjugation of ‘other’ human beings in order to build a new world?” The botanical specimens Gardner adds to each portrait echo the style of eighteenth-century books cataloging plants with exquisitely delicate illustrations. Gardner includes their Latin names—a colonizing effect wholly tied to European conventions of the study of natural history, which was a booming industry in the print trade in the eighteenth century. The names set in parentheses are not the common names of the plants but the names of slaves from Thistlewood’s diaries, reflecting another colonizing act in which the assignment of names was arbitrary and separated slaves from their African identities—more subjugation and dehumanization. But the applied knowledge of plants has long been the domain of women, and whose use has long been distrusted by men. Remember healers were thought to be witches in the early years of the Republic? In Gardener’s prints, these particular plants are in fact Abortifacients, which were used to abort unwanted pregnancies. Gardner’s portraits allow these women to control the male gaze upon them, display individualism through hairstyles, acknowledge but transform the objects of torture, and twist Thistlewood’s intense interest in botany to identify plants used to counter his attempts to impregnate and profit from the births of black bodies carried by women with few options. Notes: The portfolio was printed at Open Studio, Toronto, with master lithographer Jill Graham. See the thorough and thoughtful catalogue on Gardner’s work that includes essays by Jennifer Law, Alison Donnell, and Janice Cheddie here: https://fcd17b62-2ec4-4ce5-8701-cf90a26cd17a.filesusr.com/…. Joscelyn Gardner (Barbadian and Canadian, born 1961) Printed by Jill Graham, Open Studio, Toronto Aristolochia bilobala (Nimine), 2010 Bromeliad penguin (Abba), 2011 Trichilia trifoliate (Quamina), 2011 Veronica frutescens (Mazerine), 2009 Mimosa pudica (Yabba), 2009 Eryngium foetidum (Prue), 2009 Cinchona pubescens (Nago Hanah), 2011 Hibiscus esculentus (Sibyl), 2009 Manihot flabellifolia (Old Catalina), 2011 Convovulus jalapa (Yara), 2010 Petiveria aliacea (Mirtilla), 2011 Coffee arabica (Clarissa), 2011 From the portfolio Creole Portraits III: bringing down the flowers… Portfolio of twelve lithographs with hand coloring on frosted Mylar Each sheet: 915 x 610 mm (36 x 24 in.) Ann ShaferIn the BMA’s study room, I welcomed classes from area colleges and high schools and enjoyed the groups from MICA the most. I loved showing young artists works that made their brain synapses fire. You could see them igniting. Sometimes it was fun to play the “how was it made” game. Usually these works were conceptual in that there is a set of rules governing the making, and also indexical in which the image is of its own making. One such drawing by Baltimore artist Denise Tassin always made the cut. The BMA’s online database doesn’t include the drawing so I can’t show you the actual work, but it is similar to the version I posted below (know that the paper is bright white, not pink). The abstract image is on a large sheet and is made of only red ink. Sometimes the students would guess correctly: Tassin used earthworms and red pigment to create the image. In some of the marks one can discern the ribbed rings of the worms’ two ends, which were usually the giveaway. It’s a beautiful drawing and enables a discussion about conceptual works of art in which a set of rules are established and followed. In this case the rules are simple: the worms are allowed to wriggle around for X time, no other intrusions interrupt the process. Next, I would pull out another critter-based work: the portfolio Wandering Position by Japanese artist Yukinori Yanagi. Coincidentally also in red ink, the five untitled sheets in this portfolio are etchings and the featured insect is an ant. On a plate coated with a hard ground, the artist followed the ant with an etching needle, tracing its path in the confined shape. Looking closely reveals the ant’s repeated attempts to get out; there is a marked build-up of lines in the corners and against the boundary. I suspect the rules included a time limit in which to follow the creature. And here is another indexical image. Yanagi didn’t draw an image of an ant traversing a space, rather, the ant’s recorded path is the image. The students seemed to love the portfolio; they always reacted with a hearty “ooh!” It’s such a simple concept really, following a bug with an etching needle. But there’s more to it. There’s a weird power struggle here, a both/and situation. The tiny and vulnerable ant is in charge of the artist’s labor and yet is confined to a prescribed space. On the other hand, the artist is at the whim of the bug and is also in control of the situation. In this and in other works Yanagi looks at issues of control in society, drawing a through-line from borders, nationality, and migration to incarceration. (The artist created an installation piece at Alcatraz in 1996.) I always strove to show works that expanded what was possible as well as different modes of art making. Yanagi’s portfolio is an intriguing set of prints that always resonated with young artists. Denise Tassin (American, born 1966) Drawing by Worms Red ink Denisetassin.com Yukinori Yanagi (Japanese, born 1959) Wandering Position, 1997 Printed by Harlan & Weaver Published by Peter Blum Editions Sheet (each): 615 x 510 mm. (24 3/16 x 20 1/16 in.) Portfolio of five etchings printed in red Baltimore Museum of Art: Women's Committee Acquisitions Endowment for Contemporary Prints and Photographs, BMA 2001.352.1–5  Denise Tassin (American, born 1966). Drawing by Worms. Red ink.  Yukinori Yanagi (Japanese, born 1959). Untitled, from the portfolio Wandering Position, 1997. Printed by Harlan & Weaver; published by Peter Blum Editions. Sheet: 615 x 510 mm. (24 3/16 x 20 1/16 in.). Etching printed in red. Baltimore Museum of Art: Women's Committee Acquisitions Endowment for Contemporary Prints and Photographs, BMA 2001.352.1–5.  [DETAIL] Yukinori Yanagi (Japanese, born 1959). Untitled, from the portfolio Wandering Position, 1997. Printed by Harlan & Weaver; published by Peter Blum Editions. Sheet: 615 x 510 mm. (24 3/16 x 20 1/16 in.). Etching printed in red. Baltimore Museum of Art: Women's Committee Acquisitions Endowment for Contemporary Prints and Photographs, BMA 2001.352.1–5.  Yukinori Yanagi (Japanese, born 1959). Untitled, from the portfolio Wandering Position, 1997. Printed by Harlan & Weaver; published by Peter Blum Editions. Sheet: 615 x 510 mm. (24 3/16 x 20 1/16 in.). Etching printed in red. Baltimore Museum of Art: Women's Committee Acquisitions Endowment for Contemporary Prints and Photographs, BMA 2001.352.1–5.  Yukinori Yanagi (Japanese, born 1959). Untitled, from the portfolio Wandering Position, 1997. Printed by Harlan & Weaver; published by Peter Blum Editions. Sheet: 615 x 510 mm. (24 3/16 x 20 1/16 in.). Etching printed in red. Baltimore Museum of Art: Women's Committee Acquisitions Endowment for Contemporary Prints and Photographs, BMA 2001.352.1–5.  Yukinori Yanagi (Japanese, born 1959). Untitled, from the portfolio Wandering Position, 1997. Printed by Harlan & Weaver; published by Peter Blum Editions. Sheet: 615 x 510 mm. (24 3/16 x 20 1/16 in.). Etching printed in red. Baltimore Museum of Art: Women's Committee Acquisitions Endowment for Contemporary Prints and Photographs, BMA 2001.352.1–5.  Yukinori Yanagi (Japanese, born 1959). Untitled, from the portfolio Wandering Position, 1997. Printed by Harlan & Weaver; published by Peter Blum Editions. Sheet: 615 x 510 mm. (24 3/16 x 20 1/16 in.). Etching printed in red. Baltimore Museum of Art: Women's Committee Acquisitions Endowment for Contemporary Prints and Photographs, BMA 2001.352.1–5. Ann ShaferFor the very first time since I left the museum three years ago (today is the anniversary), I am glad I’m not there anymore. The museum sector is going through some real come-to-Jesus moments. I am having a hard time watching from the sidelines and I can only imagine how frustrated I would be as a museum employee with little to no power to address the issues. Museums, by definition, are collections of things. Categorizing and defining objects and identifying the cultures from whence they came, as well as the notion of them as specimens for our study, has me feeling queasy. The whole enterprise has been rightly identified as a colonializing one. This idea isn’t new—I certainly didn’t come up with it—but at this moment, all these factors are colliding, and I am not sure I see a way for museums to come through it. What do you do when they are entirely based on the idea of studying the “other.” Is it possible to change courses to what necessarily has to be a wholly different model? Just what is the blueprint for this shift? I loved working in museums. I did it for nearly thirty years. I’m an object person. I believe art can help us think through difficult concepts as well as give us pleasure. I never wanted to do anything else besides create ways to tell interesting stories through great art. I love works that sit at the intersection of new and old, of abstract representation and representational abstraction, of beauty and toughness. Filed in the ones-that-got-away column is the work of Mike Waugh whose large-scale drawings demand attention. On the surface one sees an image that harkens back to traditional tropes of Americana: eagles, ducks, hounds, horses. One could write them off as illustrative and backward facing; but stay with it. Zoom in and notice each drawn line is really text. (This technique has a name: micrography.) These lines are not just random words selected because their shapes fit the bill, but words that together make up important political manifestos and bureaucratic documents. In a drawing from earlier this year, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, Waugh has written out the text of the 2010 Supreme Court ruling. Hugely controversial, it reversed campaign finance restrictions and enabled corporations and other groups to spend unlimited funds on elections. Reversing the one-hundred-year-old law allows wealthy donors, corporations, and special interest groups to have dramatically expanded influence on campaigns with negative repercussions for American democracy and the fight against political corruption. In Waugh’s image, a pack of hunting dogs are waiting for guidance—the blind leading the blind—while a seagull seated on one hound’s back seems to be anticipating the other shoe dropping. For Redacted, 2019, Waugh copied over 350 pages of The Mueller Report. It took months of meditative labor to accomplish the work (which is huge for a drawing at some 6 x 6 feet). A nest of baby birds with mouths agape are innocently stuck in the nest until they gain maturity. For the moment they are just waiting to be fed and hoping for the best. Wasps swarm above them menacingly. While the Mueller Report laid out definitive evidence of corruption and criminal activity within the 2016 Trump election campaign, the populace is unable to take really meaningful action (until November 3, that is). Politically charged content and “traditional” imagery intersect here. The beauty and intricacy of the drawings engages us. Understanding what the text says and represents gives us pause. Artists are always interested in getting people to linger longer over their work, and Waugh’s delicate, massive, impactful drawings richly reward scrutiny. Michael Waugh (American, born 1967) Citizens United, 2020 Pen and black ink on Mylar 45 x 69 inches (114.3 x 175.3 cm) Courtesy Von Lintel Gallery Michael Waugh (American, born 1967) Redacted (The Mueller Report, volume I & II), 2019 Diptych, pen and black ink on Mylar Overall: 81 x 76 inches (206 x 193 cm.) Courtesy Von Lintel Gallery  Michael Waugh (American, born 1967). Citizens United, 2020. Pen and black ink on Mylar. 45 x 69 inches (114.3 x 175.3 cm). Courtesy Von Lintel Gallery.  [DETAIL} Michael Waugh (American, born 1967). Citizens United, 2020. Pen and black ink on Mylar. 45 x 69 inches (114.3 x 175.3 cm). Courtesy Von Lintel Gallery.  [DETAIL} Michael Waugh (American, born 1967). Citizens United, 2020. Pen and black ink on Mylar. 45 x 69 inches (114.3 x 175.3 cm). Courtesy Von Lintel Gallery.  [DETAIL} Michael Waugh (American, born 1967). Citizens United, 2020. Pen and black ink on Mylar. 45 x 69 inches (114.3 x 175.3 cm). Courtesy Von Lintel Gallery.  Michael Waugh (American, born 1967). Redacted (The Mueller Report, volume I & II), 2019. Diptych, pen and black ink on Mylar. Overall: 81 x 76 inches (206 x 193 cm.). Courtesy Von Lintel Gallery.  [DETAIL] Michael Waugh (American, born 1967). Redacted (The Mueller Report, volume I & II), 2019. Diptych, pen and black ink on Mylar. Overall: 81 x 76 inches (206 x 193 cm.). Courtesy Von Lintel Gallery.  [DETAIL] Michael Waugh (American, born 1967). Redacted (The Mueller Report, volume I & II), 2019. Diptych, pen and black ink on Mylar. Overall: 81 x 76 inches (206 x 193 cm.). Courtesy Von Lintel Gallery.  [DETAIL] Michael Waugh (American, born 1967). Redacted (The Mueller Report, volume I & II), 2019. Diptych, pen and black ink on Mylar. Overall: 81 x 76 inches (206 x 193 cm.). Courtesy Von Lintel Gallery. Ann ShaferPosters. According to Charles Anderson, an American graphic designer, posters are “art with a purpose, to communicate, announce, promote, or inform.” This is the opening line of a book on posters from the Victoria and Albert Museum collection just published. It lays out a compelling social history and is worth reading (Gil Saunders and Margaret Timmers, The Poster: A Visual History. London: V&A/Thames & Hudson, 2020). It is chock-a-block full of great images from across the spectrum: British, French, American, Russian, war, leisure, entertainment, products, travel. You may not know that I am also a graphic designer. What can I say, it’s one of my creative outlets. Yes, I’ve gotten paid for my work, but mostly I do it for friends and family. I really love the graphic sensibility of a great poster. Out of more than one hundred images in the V&A’s book, I selected several to share that resonate with my sense of design. You’ll notice that I’m drawn to highly reductive imagery. Forms are simplified and reduced to essentials, colors are bold, and there are few words. Swiss designer Armin Hofmann summed up a poster’s strength as based on: “size, clarity, simplicity.” I have always felt that less is more in advertising and I find myself constantly critiquing logos on trucks and billboards as I drive around town. Since you have to catch someone’s attention really quickly, too much visual information overwhelms and becomes illegible. See if you agree with my choices. Posters fell under my responsibility at the museum; they are stored with the rest of the print collection. Like the BMA, some museums collect and keep posters in the same manner as other works on paper. Some museums have them set apart from the regular stuff in a sort of “study collection.” And some museums don’t collect them at all believing they aren’t art. Why? Their commercial function as advertisements creates a divide between them and fine art. But they are designed by artists (aka graphic designers). They are printed on presses like fine art prints. So what gives? It’s a strange bias that has always fascinated me. The BMA has some great posters, particularly by Toulouse-Lautrec and other nineteenth-century artists. They are difficult to handle. Often large and fragile, they are usually printed on crappy paper—they were meant to be temporary after all. But they carry such great impact and are instructive for historians and artists alike. And I do love them. Julius Klinger (Austrian, 1876–1942) Zoologischer Garten, c. 1910 Color lithograph Victoria and Albert Museum, E.614–1915 Edward McKnight Kauffer (British, 1890–1954) Soaring to Success! Daily Herald—The Early Bird, 1919 Color lithograph Victoria and Albert Museum, E.35–1973 Henry Sajous (French) S.I.C.C.E.A. Bicycles, 1920s Color lithograph Victoria and Albert Museum, E.320–2018 Charles Paine (British, 1895–1967) Boat Race, 1921 Color lithograph Victoria and Albert Museum, E.261–1981 Cassandre (Adolphe Jean-Marie-Mouron, French, 1901–1968) Nord Express, 1927 Color lithograph Victoria and Albert Museum, E.223–1935 Peter Irwin Brown (British, 1903–1988) There is Sunshine in the South, 1930 Color lithograph Victoria and Albert Museum, E.340–1932 Cassandre (Adolphe Jean-Marie-Mouron, French, 1901–1968) Normandie, 1935 Color lithograph Victoria and Albert Museum, E.648–2017 Lester Beall (British, 1903–1969) Light, 1937 Color screenprint Victoria and Albert Museum, E.265–2005 Theyre Lee-Elliott (British, 1903–1988) British Airways. Paris & Scandinavia. As the Crow Flies—Only Faster!, c. 1937–38 Color lithograph Victoria and Albert Museum, E.1372–1979 Jean Carlu (American, born France, 1900–1997) Give ‘Em Both Barrels, 1941 Color lithograph Victoria and Albert Museum, E.2916–1980 Abram Games (British, 1914–1996) Men who mean business read The Financial Times every day, c. 1951 Color lithograph Victoria and Albert Museum, E.156–1980 Reginald Mount (British, 1906–1979) and Eileen Evans (British, born 1921) Little scraps of information can add up to a whale of a lot…and the net is wide! Keep our secrets secret, 1960 Color lithograph Victoria and Albert Museum, E.450–1995 Tomoko Miho (American, 1931–2012) 65 bridges to new york, 1968 Color offset lithograph and screenprint Victoria and Albert Museum, E.420–1973 John Bainbridge (British, 1918–1978) SS France Campagnie Générale Transatlantique: Le Havre New York, c. 1968 Color offset lithograph Victoria and Albert Museum, E.250–1981 Alan Kitching (British, born 1940) Taxi! For the London Poster Project, 2009 Color screenprint Victoria and Albert Museum, E.397–2011 Ann ShaferI have written before that I’ve had jaw-dropping art history moments in my life. There have been three, although I’ve only written about the first two: Manet’s still life of lilacs during an undergraduate slide lecture, discovering the church steeple looming over the garden behind Charles Demuth’s childhood home in Lancaster, PA, and seeing Velasquez’s Las Meninas at the Prado in Madrid (I’ll write about this last one eventually). There have also been the occasional goosebumpy experiences mostly derived from entering amazing architectural spaces like St. Peter’s in Rome, Notre Dame in Paris, or Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water. Better yet is when the goosebumps are the result of the intersection of architecture and art. One of the super cool things about my job as a curator was escorting art to random places around the world to which I would not travel otherwise. Back in 2006, I escorted the BMA’s masterwork, Matisse’s Pink Nude, to the Fondation Beyeler in Basel, Switzerland. I had heard from colleagues to not miss a trip to see the Beyeler, an intimate museum set in green, open fields on the outskirts of Basel. The museum normally devotes several galleries to single artists enabling an in-depth view into a few, like Pablo Picasso and Paul Klee. It’s an interesting model, although it helps, of course, if you like the art of whoever is being featured. One of the sections focuses on Claude Monet, whose work is easy to like. I confess I appreciate his early work more than the late, large canvases of flowers from his garden at Giverny, but the Beyeler has on view a large canvas of waterlilies that comes to life because of the space it occupies. The gallery houses only that one painting. It is a long rectangular room at the short end of which is a glass wall looking out onto the landscape. Abutting the window on the outside is a pool of water (with waterlilies, of course) at the same level as the floor of the room. Light bouncing off the moving water flutters across the walls of the gallery in constant motion. The painting is hung on one of the long walls and along the opposite wall is a long, white couch. The whole scene is built for quiet contemplation. When I found the gallery, it was empty and I was blissfully alone. I sat down on the couch and took in the light flickering across the walls and floor. This was impressive enough, but suddenly music started playing. It was something lovely, classical. Chopin, I think. That’s when the goosebumps started. I really loved the totality of the experience. The awareness of the outdoors mirroring the effects of Monet’s conception, the ability to settle into a comfortable couch and linger, and the addition of lovely music. It was an assault on the senses in the best way. Put the Beyeler on your list of post-pandemic places to visit. It’s totally worth the effort.  Monet gallery at Fondation Beyeler, Basel, Switzerland. Ann ShaferRecently I saw a t-shirt that said “Don’t make me repeat myself. –History" There is a lot going on these days. Between the pandemic, politics, and confronting America’s legacy of slavery and systemic racism, I am, as I’m sure you are, anxious. On top of that, as I write this, I’m riding out a hurricane in a cottage overlooking the very turbulent waters of Vineyard Sound. We all know this period is not unique. Humans have made it through more dire times than these. But still, we seem doomed to repeat our mistakes. As I’ve written before, I really appreciate an artist who digs in and expresses the fears and worries of their time in a way that helps viewers process and think. Especially if the images read just as well in our time as in theirs. Gabor Peterdi was a Hungarian artist who worked at Atelier 17 in Paris in the 1930s during the Spanish Civil War and leading up the second World War. Like so many of his compatriots, he created prints that address issues of social justice and crimes against humanity, sometimes using the bull and bull fights or mythical horses and man-animal creatures as stand-ins for humankind. One rarely finds any self-portraits among the prints made at Hayter’s workshop, but Peterdi is notable for a 1938 series of self-portraits in which he holds his head in his hands in despair. It’s hard to get the emotion just right in these kind of images, and I think Peterdi hits the nail on the head. Like so many others, Peterdi made his way to America at the beginning of the war (remember, Europe was in turmoil for years leading up to the official declaration of war in September 1939). He enlisted in the U.S. Army and fought for his new country. No surprise, that experience finds its way into his work. Peterdi went on to have a long career both making prints and teaching printmaking. In addition to establishing the printmaking program at the Brooklyn Museum School, Peterdi taught at Hunter College from 1952–1960, and then at Yale University from 1960–1987. (Among his many students at Yale were Peter Milton and Chuck Close.) In a previous post I wrote about artists making prints reacting to World War II in the years after its conclusion as a demonstration of that conflict’s lasting effect. I also wrote about artists writing about their own work and how I wish more artists would take the time to do the same. Peterdi’s The Vision of Fear, 1953, fits both categories. About the print Peterdi wrote: “My basic idea was to create an oppressive, enervating image haunted by fearful symbols of destruction. I tried to express a composite feeling of flying with deadly birds and watching them from below.” This print is interesting also because of the four additional plates he laid on top of the large plate as it passed through the press. The deep emboss accentuates their addition as does the red ink he used, making the crosses seem to fall from the sky. I’ve included images here that I don’t mention because I think Peterdi deserves more attention and I love his sensibility. But I will note that Still Life in Germany is one that got away. I had been keeping my eye on it for years, waiting for the right time to pitch it. In the end, I ran out of time. By the way, if any of you studied with Peterdi, I’d love to hear your stories. Gabor Peterdi (American, born Hungary, 1915–2001) Despair I, 1938 Etching and engraving Plate: 266 x 197 mm. (10 1/2 × 7 ¾ in.) Sheet: 448 x 315 mm. (17 5/8 × 12 3/8 in.) Museum of Modern Art: Purchase, 146.1944 Gabor Peterdi (American, born Hungary, 1915–2001) Despair II, 1938 Etching and engraving Plate: 245 × 206 mm. (9 5/8 × 8 1/8 in.) Sheet: 304 × 269 mm. (11 15/16 × 10 9/16 in.) Yale University Art Gallery: Gift of James N. Heald II, B.S. 1949, 2011.148.8 Gabor Peterdi (American, born Hungary, 1915–2001) Despair III, 1938 Etching and engraving Plate: 315 x 248 mm. (12 3/8 × 9 ¾ in.) Sheet: 452 x 340 mm. (17 13/16 × 13 3/8 in.) Museum of Modern Art: Gift of the Artist, 103.1955 Gabor Peterdi (American, born Hungary, 1915–2001) Despair IV, 1938 Etching, engraving, and drypoint Plate: 241 × 203 mm. (9 1/2 × 8 in.) Sheet: 453 × 329 mm. (17 13/16 × 12 15/16 in.) Yale University Art Gallery: Gift of James N. Heald II, B.S. 1949, 2011.148.9 Gabor Peterdi (American, born Hungary, 1915–2001) Despair V, 1938 Etching Plate: 247 × 209 mm. (9 3/4 × 8 1/4 in.) Sheet: 453 × 329 mm. (17 13/16 × 12 15/16 in.) Yale University Art Gallery: Gift of James N. Heald II, B.S. 1949, 2011.148.10 Gabor Peterdi (American, born Hungary, 1915–2001) The Vision of Fear, 1953 Etching and engraving Plate: 651 × 933 mm. (25 5/8 × 36 3/4 in.) Sheet: 749 × 105 mm. (29 1/2 × 41 1/4 in.) Mutual Art Gabor Peterdi (American, born Hungary, 1915–2001) Still Life in Germany, 1946 Engraving Plate: 302 x 227 mm. (11 7/8 x 8 15/16 in.) Conrad Graeber Fine Art Gabor Peterdi (American, born Hungary, 1915–2001) Hunter Hunted, 1947 Engraving Plate: 394 x 368 mm. (15 1/2 x 14 ½ in.) Annex Galleries Gabor Peterdi (American, born Hungary, 1915–2001) The Price of Glory, 1947 Engraving Plate: 276 x 454 mm. (10 7/8 x 17 7/8 in.) Sheet: 336 x 514 mm. (13 1/4 x 20 ¼ in.) Dolan/Maxwell  Gabor Peterdi (American, born Hungary, 1915–2001). Despair I, 1938. Etching and engraving. Plate: 266 x 197 mm. (10 1/2 × 7 ¾ in.); sheet: 448 x 315 mm. (17 5/8 × 12 3/8 in.). Museum of Modern Art: Purchase, 146.1944.  Gabor Peterdi (American, born Hungary, 1915–2001). Despair II, 1938. Etching and engraving. Plate: 245 × 206 mm. (9 5/8 × 8 1/8 in.); sheet: 304 × 269 mm. (11 15/16 × 10 9/16 in.). Yale University Art Gallery: Gift of James N. Heald II, B.S. 1949, 2011.148.8.  Gabor Peterdi (American, born Hungary, 1915–2001). Despair III, 1938. Etching and engraving. Plate: 315 x 248 mm. (12 3/8 × 9 ¾ in.); sheet: 452 x 340 mm. (17 13/16 × 13 3/8 in.). Museum of Modern Art: Gift of the Artist, 103.1955.  Gabor Peterdi (American, born Hungary, 1915–2001). Despair IV, 1938. Etching, engraving, and drypoint. Plate: 241 × 203 mm. (9 1/2 × 8 in.); sheet: 453 × 329 mm. (17 13/16 × 12 15/16 in.). Yale University Art Gallery: Gift of James N. Heald II, B.S. 1949, 2011.148.9.  Gabor Peterdi (American, born Hungary, 1915–2001). Despair V, 1938. Etching. Plate: 247 × 209 mm. (9 3/4 × 8 1/4 in.); sheet: 453 × 329 mm. (17 13/16 × 12 15/16 in.). Yale University Art Gallery: Gift of James N. Heald II, B.S. 1949, 2011.148.10.  Gabor Peterdi (American, born Hungary, 1915–2001). The Vision of Fear, 1953. Etching and engraving. Plate: 651 × 933 mm. (25 5/8 × 36 3/4 in.); sheet: 749 × 105 mm. (29 1/2 × 41 1/4 in.). Mutual Art.  Gabor Peterdi (American, born Hungary, 1915–2001). Still Life in Germany, 1946. Engraving. Plate: 302 x 227 mm. (11 7/8 x 8 15/16 in.). Conrad Graeber Fine Art.  Gabor Peterdi (American, born Hungary, 1915–2001). Hunter Hunted, 1947. Engraving. Plate: 394 x 368 mm. (15 1/2 x 14 ½ in.). Annex Galleries.  Gabor Peterdi (American, born Hungary, 1915–2001). The Price of Glory, 1947. Engraving. Plate: 276 x 454 mm. (10 7/8 x 17 7/8 in.); sheet: 336 x 514 mm. (13 1/4 x 20 ¼ in.). Dolan/Maxwell. Ann ShaferWhen I taught young artists in the BMA’s printroom, I always suggested a few things to keep in mind when creating art. First, that they pay attention to materials—the work might turn out well, and you’ll be sorry it’s on crappy paper. Second, that they sign everything—I can’t tell you how many works on paper by unknown artists are in the collection. Third, that they date everything—you always think you’ll remember when you created a work, but unless you have a remarkable mind, you won’t remember. On the latter point, some museums are okay with n.d. as a date (meaning no date), but I was trained to at least assign a range of possible dates, which would help viewers identify a period or century. Sometimes this means a huge range from birth plus twenty to death. For example, if the artist were born in 1900 and died in 1975, and the object had no date, we would write c. 1920–1975. Crazy, right? No one wants that. For me, however, it would be even better if the artist wrote something about their intentions with a work. But my sage friend and artist Ben Levy would say: “I’m an artist and I say things visually. Now you want me to write about it, too? I say it visually because I can’t say it in writing.” And I get it. Artists are a special breed with special brains. They think differently. But it would be lovely to be able to read an artist’s words about a given work anyway. I thank all you artists in advance. It is rare to come across an artist who is eloquent about their own work. While working on my Hayter project, I became intrigued by the hundreds if not thousands of artists who worked at Atelier 17. I was thrilled to find one artist who wrote about his prints, which his granddaughter made available online. Leo Katz was an established printmaker and painter by the time Hayter set up the workshop at the New School for Social Research in New York in 1940. The New York branch remained operational until 1955 under the direction of several people, including Katz. In 2015, his granddaughter, Lisa Katz Wadge, established a useful web site devoted to her grandfather's career that includes one of his essays along with notes on individual prints. For me, Katz’s print Pegasus, 1945, is his most important. It is a direct reaction to World War II. I’m fascinated by prints made during and just following the war, and how artists digested the experience, the fallout, the H bomb, the Holocaust. All these revelations in the late 1940s must have been overwhelming. I’m also interested in how long after the end of the war artists made work reflecting on it. I can think of works done well into the 1950s. Trauma lasts. But to the artist’s own words. Katz writes about Pegasus: "This composition tried to express symbolically, the condition of the creative spirit at the end of World War II. Pegasus the winged horse, the dream symbol of man's creative imagination, tries to get out from under the remains of barbed wires and nets among the concrete tank traps. He makes a feeble attempt to rise on his forelegs. In the distance there are still explosions. The dark mesh, which arches over the horse, has a suggestion of a pelvic form which would indicate that awakening is more like birth. I had a feeling at that time (1945) that the great question of our era is whether this birth, or rebirth, of Pegasus will be a living, lasting success or not. It is not enough to have rockets and bombers flying high in the air while man's creative soul with its dreams is permanently grounded.” If you can, write about your work’s intentions. Or, at the very least, sign and date it. Thank you from future art historians and curators. Leo Katz (American, born Czechoslovakia, 1887–1982) Pegasus (three states), 1945 Engraving and softground etching; printed in black (intaglio) Plate: 251 × 304 mm. (9 7/8 × 11 15/16 in.) Leo Katz Foundation  Leo Katz (American, born Czechoslovakia, 1887–1982). Pegasus (final state), 1945. Engraving and softground etching. Plate: 251 × 304 mm. (9 7/8 × 11 15/16 in.). Leo Katz Foundation.  Leo Katz (American, born Czechoslovakia, 1887–1982). Pegasus (second state), 1945. Engraving and softground etching. Plate: 251 × 304 mm. (9 7/8 × 11 15/16 in.). Leo Katz Foundation.  Leo Katz (American, born Czechoslovakia, 1887–1982). Pegasus (first state), 1945. Engraving and softground etching. Plate: 251 × 304 mm. (9 7/8 × 11 15/16 in.). Leo Katz Foundation. Ann ShaferLast week I posted a few images of praying mantes in prints. Fascinating creatures. By the terribly scientific polling apparatus available to me—number of likes, natch—I decided to post more images by the person whose praying mantis print was most admired, Roderick Mead (American, 1900–1971). Mead grew up in New Jersey and attended Yale University, graduating in 1925. Following art school, he moved to New York where he studied at the Art Students’ League under George Luks (and later with him privately) for several years. He also studied watercolor painting with George Pearse Ennis at the Grand Central School of Art. In 1931, Mead moved to Majorca. Three years later he moved his studio to Paris and began studying printmaking at guess where? The experimental studio run by Stanley William Hayter known as Atelier 17. Actually, in 1931, the atelier was only a few years old and had yet to take up the name it would become known by. It wasn’t until 1933 that the studio moved to 17, rue Campagne Première, from which the 17 in its name derives. But you can be sure that Mead absorbed as much as he could there and as a result, the effect on his style is clear. At the Atelier on any given day one might be working at a table next to Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, Alberto Giacometti, Max Ernst, Yves Tanguy, Jean Hélion, or Wassily Kandinsky. Like most of the artists there, Mead experimented with abstraction and surrealism, and one finds shared ideas, forms, and styles among the prints made there. Like most everyone else, Mead and his wife left Paris in 1939 ahead of the start of World War II and by 1941 was living in Carlsbad, New Mexico. There he was able to devote himself to creating art full time; he continued to paint and make prints until his death in 1971. For me, Mead would have been one in a long list of artists working with Hayter about whom I know not a great deal was it not for my friend Gregg Most, who grew up down the street from the Meads. Gregg and I worked together at the National Gallery in the 1990s, and he has researched and collected Mead for a long time. It is Gregg’s passion for Mead that caused me to pay closer attention. I love Mead’s prints because they are carefully crafted, readable yet totally surreal, and have a high sense of crispness and design that really attracts me. See if you agree. Roderick Mead (American, 1900–1971) The Wrecked Ship, 1936 Engraving Plate: 197 x 251 mm. (7 ¾ x 9 7/8 in.) Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Roderick Mead, 1974.122.1 Roderick Mead (American, 1900–1971) Untitled (Matador and Bull), c. 1936 Engraving and softground etching with aquatint Plate: 203 x 203 mm. (8 × 8 in.) Dolan/Maxwell Roderick Mead (American, 1900–1971) Rope Figures, c. 1935–45 Engraving Plate: 160 x 82 mm. (6 1⁄2 x 3 1⁄4 in.) Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Roderick Mead, 1976.99.5 Roderick Mead (American, 1900–1971) St. Michael and the Dragon, 1939 Color wood engraving Image: 232 x 203 mm. (9 1/8 x 8 in.) Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Roderick Mead, 1974.122.6 Roderick Mead (American, 1900–1971) Creation of Eve, c. 1942 Engraving and softground etching Plate: 200 x 199 mm. (7 7/8 x 7 13/16 in.) Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Roderick Mead, 1976.99.1 Roderick Mead (American, 1900–1971) Trojan Horse, c. 1945–50s Color engraving, aquatint, and softground etching Plate: 235 x 298 mm. (9 ¼ x 11 ¾ in.) Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Roderick Mead, 1974.122.2 Roderick Mead (American, 1900–1971) Combat #1 (Incident), c. 1942–45 Engraving and softground etching 264 x 186 mm. (10 3/8 x 7 3/8 in.) Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Roderick Mead, 1974.122.3 Roderick Mead, (American, 1900–1971) Tauromachia I, 1946 Engraving and aquatint Plate: 114 x 182 mm (4 ½ x 31/4 in.) Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Achenbach Foundation, California State Library loan, L543.1966  Roderick Mead (American, 1900–1971). The Wrecked Ship,1936. Engraving and aquatint. Plate: 197 x 251 mm. (7 ¾ x 9 7/8 in.). Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Roderick Mead, 1974.122.1.  Roderick Mead (American, 1900–1971). Untitled (Matador and Bull), c. 1936. Engraving and softground etching with aquatint. Plate: 203 x 203 mm. (8 × 8 in.). Dolan/Maxwell.  Roderick Mead (American, 1900–1971). Rope Figures, c. 1935–45. Engraving. Plate: 160 x 82 mm. (6 1⁄2 x 3 1⁄4 in.). Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Roderick Mead, 1976.99.5.  Roderick Mead (American, 1900–1971). St. Michael and the Dragon, 1939. Color wood engraving. Image: 232 x 203 mm. (9 1/8 x 8 in.). Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Roderick Mead, 1974.122.6.  Roderick Mead (American, 1900–1971). Creation of Eve, c. 1942. Engraving and softground etching. Plate: 200 x 199 mm. (7 7/8 x 7 13/16 in.). Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Roderick Mead, 1976.99.1.  Roderick Mead (American, 1900–1971). Trojan Horse, c. 1945–50s. Color engraving, aquatint, and softground etching. Plate: 235 x 298 mm. (9 ¼ x 11 ¾ in.). Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Roderick Mead, 1974.122.2.  Roderick Mead (American, 1900–1971). Combat #1 (Incident), c. 1942–45. Engraving and softground etching. Plate: 264 x 186 mm. (10 3/8 x 7 3/8 in.). Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Roderick Mead, 1974.122.3.  Roderick Mead, (American, 1900–1971). Tauromachia I, 1946. Engraving and aquatint. Plate: 114 x 182 mm (4 ½ x 31/4 in.). Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Achenbach Foundation, California State Library loan, L543.1966. Ann ShaferI always wanted to do an exhibition about the audience. Portraying not the main attraction—the action on stage—but the people who are watching seems ripe for capturing a slice of life. The lookers being looked at flips convention. Voyeurism is a funny thing, alternately creepy and, what’s the opposite of creepy? Oh, pleasant. There are some great prints from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that would fit in this proposed exhibition nicely like Mary Cassatt’s In the Opera Box, 1879, Reginald Marsh’s Box at the Metropolitan, 1934, Joseph Hirsch’s Hecklers, 1943. Of course, there are plenty of paintings portraying audiences, too. My favorite is Tissot’s Women of Paris: The Circus Lover, 1885. Though these images may seem quirky and quaint now, it is possible for an image of this type to cross over into social justice and to capture the zeitgeist. For me, one of the most searing group of images of an audience is Paul Fusco’s series taken in 1968 from the train carrying the body of Robert F. Kennedy from New York to Washington, D.C., for burial at Arlington National Cemetery. The photographs capture an emotionally naked populace witnessing the end of optimism in the country. RFK’s assassination followed that of his brother, President Kennedy on November 22, 1963; Malcolm X on February 21, 1965; and Martin Luther King, Jr., on April 4, 1968. RFK was shot just two months after Dr. King’s death, on June 5, 1968. By then, the country had seen more than its share of sorrow and senseless killing. The photographer, Paul Fusco, died last week, and it reminded me of how powerful the images are still. I marvel at how much emotion is conveyed across decades; they give me chills to this day. It may not surprise you to know that one of the photographs, a shot up North Broadway, just before the train dips underground on its approach into Penn Station in Baltimore, is one that got away. I pitched this photograph some years ago and got enough pushback to return it to the dealer. Part of the issue was that my colleagues weren’t convinced it was Baltimore in the photograph (of course it is), and the other had to do with vintage prints versus later reprints. Many curators seek and prefer to collect vintage prints, meaning the photographs were printed at the time they were shot. The photograph in question was a later printing, and thus was less desirable. I am certain Fusco wasn’t thinking in terms of museum collections in 1968. In fact, as a member of Magnum Photos, an international cooperative agency, he was on assignment for Look magazine, which published two of the photographs in black and white. The series was unknown until Aperture published it in 2008. Hence the later printings. In an earlier post I said I have never forgotten those that got away, and it’s true. To this day, when I see one of these works on the wall in some exhibition, I think “yes, I was right.” A few years after my failed pitch, I saw an exhibition of Fusco’s RFK train pictures at SFMoMA, and there was the North Broadway shot, front and center. Vindication. Paul Fusco (American, 1930–2020) Untitled (North Broadway, Baltimore), from the series RFK Funeral Train, 1968, printed later Danziger Gallery Paul Fusco (American, 1930–2020) Untitled (Family), from the series RFK Funeral Train, 1968, printed later Danziger Gallery Paul Fusco (American, 1930–2020) Untitled (Western Maryland Railroad), from the series RFK Funeral Train, 1968, printed later Danziger Gallery Mary Cassatt (American, 1844–1926) In the Opera Box (No. 3), c. 1880 Etching, softground etching, and aquatint Sheet: 357 x 269 mm. (14 1/16 x 10 9/16 in.) Plate: 197 x 178 mm. (7 3/4 x 7 in.) Metropolitan Museum of Art: Gift of Mrs. Imrie de Vegh, 1949, 49.127.1 Reginald Marsh American (1898–1954) Box at the Metropolitan, 1934 Etching and engraving Sheet: 250 x 202 mm. (9 13/16 x 7 15/16 in.) Plate 322 x 252 mm. (12 11/16 x 9 15/16 in.) Metropolitan Museum of Art: Gift of The Honorable William Benton, 1959, 59.609.15 Joseph Hirsch (American, 1910–1981) The Hecklers, 1943–1944, published 1948 Lithograph Sheet 312 421 mm. (12 5/16 x 16 9/16 in.) Image: 251 x 388 mm. (9 7/8 x 15 ¼ in.) National Gallery of Art: Reba and Dave Williams Collection, Gift of Reba and Dave Williams, 2008.115.2503 James Tissot (1836–1902) Women of Paris: The Circus Lover, 1885 Oil on canvas 147.3 x 101.6 cm. (58 x 40 in.) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: Juliana Cheney Edwards Collection, 58.45  Paul Fusco (American, 1930–2020). Untitled (North Broadway, Baltimore), from the series RFK Funeral Train, 1968, printed later. Danziger Gallery.  Google Maps shot of the median on North Broadway, Baltimore, from under the train tracks.  Paul Fusco (American, 1930–2020). Untitled (Family), from the series RFK Funeral Train, 1968, printed later. Danziger Gallery.  Paul Fusco (American, 1930–2020). Untitled (Western Maryland Railroad), from the series RFK Funeral Train, 1968, printed later. Danziger Gallery.  Mary Cassatt (American, 1844–1926). In the Opera Box (No. 3), c. 1880. Etching, softground etching, and aquatint. Sheet: 357 x 269 mm. (14 1/16 x 10 9/16 in.); plate: 197 x 178 mm. (7 3/4 x 7 in.). Metropolitan Museum of Art: Gift of Mrs. Imrie de Vegh, 1949, 49.127.1.  Reginald Marsh American (1898–1954). Box at the Metropolitan, 1934. Etching and engraving. Sheet: 250 x 202 mm. (9 13/16 x 7 15/16 in.); plate 322 x 252 mm. (12 11/16 x 9 15/16 in.). Metropolitan Museum of Art: Gift of The Honorable William Benton, 1959, 59.609.15.  Joseph Hirsch (American, 1910–1981). The Hecklers, 1943–1944, published 1948. Lithograph. Sheet 312 421 mm. (12 5/16 x 16 9/16 in.); image: 251 x 388 mm. (9 7/8 x 15 ¼ in.). National Gallery of Art: Reba and Dave Williams Collection, Gift of Reba and Dave Williams, 2008.115.2503.  James Tissot (1836–1902). Women of Paris: The Circus Lover, 1885. Oil on canvas. 147.3 x 101.6 cm. (58 x 40 in.). Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: Juliana Cheney Edwards Collection, 58.45. Ann ShaferCome with me down a rabbit hole to where the praying mantis lives. We will look at a 1946 print by Fred Becker, who was one of Hayter’s people. He worked as a shop tech and printer at Atelier 17 in the 1940s until he left to found the printmaking program at Washington University in St. Louis. I have been looking at and researching this American artist recently; I have been mulling over Kaleidoscopic Organism, 1946, for longer then I’d like to admit. It has befuddled me. I thought today I would lay out my thinking and take you along for the ride as I pick it apart and attempt to get inside the artist’s mind. Please know this is only my thinking—no guarantee that any of it is right! Kaleidoscopic Organism is an engraving and etching (both hard and softground) and is sizable at 17 5/8 x 14 3/4 (plate size). The image is wacky. An amoeba-like mass occupies the center around which swirl discs that hold open said amoeba to reveal its innards. In the background are radiating lines that create either a halo or a vortex. Within the mass’ interior we find (from the bottom moving upward): a balustrade or railing that is being built or repaired, a casement window handle, a keyhole holding the center of the being but there’s something going through it (a little Dr. Seussian figure, n’est ce pas?), and assorted architectural wire forms surmounted by what I see as a praying mantis. Praying mantis, hmmm. These majestic but aggressive insects were a shared subject among artists making surrealist prints at Atelier 17. I’ve included several prints of mantes by Atelier 17 artists for your viewing pleasure. With angular rear legs, triangular pivoting head, bulging eyes, and large, weirdly human forearms, mantis anatomy translates easily into line and action on the plate and offers interesting stand-ins for humans. But more to the point, the female mantis devours the male mantis after copulation (yikes!). They are also known to attack other insects (delightful). [For a good discussion about the Surrealists’ obsession with praying mantes, see William L. Pressly, “The Praying Mantis in Surrealist Art,” The Art Bulletin 60, no. 4 (December 1973): 600–615. And Ruth Markus. “Surrealism's Praying Mantis and Castrating Woman.” Woman's Art Journal 21, no. 1 (2000), 33–39. So, what about that praying mantis in Becker’s organism? I think we’ve got ourselves a vagina dentata, reflecting myths about fierce lady bits and male castration fears. Becker’s form is not toothed like Hayter’s Ceres, 1947–48 (image below), but its head that is just at the apex of the cavity cannot be overlooked. I will leave it there. Then, we must look at the bulk of the organism itself. At its bottom we find two feet, one with a shoe so worn that a big toe pops out of it. Until this moment, I could still believe we were dealing with a microscopic look at teeming life or a celestial big bang in process, but the feet snap us back to the immediate, visible world. What the heck? Ok, so here are my theories/questions about each element, which often have opposing possibilities. They are many and still swimming around in my brain. I welcome any thoughts that may clarify or further confuse the issues. 1. Is the background radiating to highlight the subject like a halo or is it a vortex we might fall into? 2. Are the discs holding the form open or running around its edges? Are they swirling like wheels or symbolizing something else? I see variously eyes, lemon slices, stained glass windows, military medals of honor, kaleidoscope parts. But could they be railway car wheels or shower heads—you see where I’m heading here, don’t you? 3. The interior elements are structural, manmade, and mechanistic (even the mantis). They are linked together like a Rube Goldbergian contraption. What’s up with the balustrade, the keyhole, and those wire apparatuses? I find it curious that the exterior discs read as organic while the interior elements read as mechanistic. There is something there just out of reach, but it will come to me. 4. The feet read as either comical (a hobo or circus clown), or as deadly serious (a wounded or dead soldier). 5. The title cannot be overlooked: Kaleidoscopic Organism (although I hate it when artists rely on titles to explicate the work—shouldn’t it hold up on its own?). The dictionary tells us that a kaleidoscope can symbolize one’s escape in times of difficulty and self-doubt; that it constantly generates changing symmetrical patterns from small pieces of colored glass and therefore symbolizes anything that changes constantly. Here is where I’ve ended up on meaning in Kaleidoscopic Organism. The title and the aforementioned definition of kaleidoscope bring me to World War II and its aftermath. At first glance, the print (made in 1946, the year after the war ended) looks comical: those gargantuan feet, the toe poking out of the shoe, the whirligigs and deeley boppers. What a smart way to pull us in. But then the praying mantis at its core turns it dark; the radiant, glowing halo turns into a vortex; the feet become those of a dead soldier; the organisms holding open the form reveal man’s mechanistic world symbolizing war, its machines, and their enabling of unbelievable cruelty and death. I suppose that contemporaneous viewers might read this work more quickly, but I believe it is imperative that we know and learn from history. It also serves to remind us that when looking at a work of art, it must be considered in context since artists can never be disassociated from the time in which they are working. Becker’s print is still stewing in my brain. If I come up with a better answer, I’ll let you know. Fred Becker (American, 1913–2004) Kaleidoscopic Organism, 1946 Etching, softground etching, and engraving Plate: 451 x 378 mm. (17 3/4 x 14 7/8 in.) Annex Galleries Stanley William Hayter (British, 1901–1988) Cruelty of Insects, 1942 Engraving and softground etching Sheet: 230 x 288 mm. (9 1/16 x 11 5/16 in.); plate: 202 x 250 mm. (7 15/16 x 9 13/16 in.) Baltimore Museum of Art: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Paul Mann, Towson, Maryland, BMA 1979.367 Roderick Mead (American, 1900–1972) Praying Mantis, c. 1940s Engraving and softground etching Plate: 394 x 279 mm. (15 ½ x 11 in.) Smithsonian American Art Museum: Gift of Mrs. Roderick Mead, 1974.122.4 Werner Drewes (American, born Germany, 1899–1985) Praying Mantis, 1944, printed 1975 Engraving and softground etching Plate: 200 x 302 mm. (7 7/8 x 11 7/8 in.) Annex Galleries Clinton Blair King (American 1901–1979) Praying Mantis, c. 1945 Etching and aquatint Plate: 277 x 200 mm (10 7/8 x 7 7/8 in.) National Gallery of Art: Reba and Dave Williams Collection, Gift of Reba and Dave Williams, 2008.115.2866 Stanley William Hayter (British, 1901–1988) Ceres, 1947–48 Engraving, softground etching, and scorper Printed in black (intaglio), and yellow (screen, relief) 605 x 390 mm. (23 7/8 x 15 3/8 in.) Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires  Fred Becker (American, 1913–2004). Kaleidoscopic Organism, 1946. Etching, softground etching, and engraving. Plate: 451 x 378 mm. (17 3/4 x 14 7/8 in.). Annex Galleries.  Stanley William Hayter (British, 1901–1988). Cruelty of Insects, 1942. Engraving and softground etching. Sheet: 230 x 288 mm. (9 1/16 x 11 5/16 in.); plate: 202 x 250 mm. (7 15/16 x 9 13/16 in.). Baltimore Museum of Art: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Paul Mann, Towson, Maryland, BMA 1979.367.  Roderick Mead (American, 1900–1972). Praying Mantis, c. 1940s. Engraving and softground etching. Plate: 394 x 279 mm. (15 ½ x 11 in.) . Smithsonian American Art Museum: Gift of Mrs. Roderick Mead, 1974.122.4.  Werner Drewes (American, born Germany, 1899–1985). Praying Mantis, 1944, printed 1975. Engraving and softground etching. Plate: 200 x 302 mm. (7 7/8 x 11 7/8 in.). Annex Galleries.  Clinton Blair King (American 1901–1979). Praying Mantis, c. 1945. Etching and aquatint. Plate: 277 x 200 mm (10 7/8 x 7 7/8 in.). National Gallery of Art: Reba and Dave Williams Collection, Gift of Reba and Dave Williams, 2008.115.2866.  Stanley William Hayter (British, 1901–1988). Ceres, 1947–48. Engraving, softground etching, and scorper; printed in black (intaglio), and yellow (screen, relief). Plate: 605 x 390 mm. (23 7/8 x 15 3/8 in.). Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires. |
Ann's art blogA small corner of the interwebs to share thoughts on objects I acquired for the Baltimore Museum of Art's collection, research I've done on Stanley William Hayter and Atelier 17, experiments in intaglio printmaking, and the Baltimore Contemporary Print Fair. Archives
February 2021
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