Diane Victor's haunting smoke drawings and a new etching

Ann Shafer

If I am doing my job correctly, I rarely come across someone or something I’ve not seen before that I know is right for the collection immediately. Even better is when the work is a powerful statement protesting the justice system. Being in New York for Print Week means reserving enough time to scoot down to the galleries in Chelsea to see what’s up. We always go to the International Print Center New York to see what magic Judy Hecker has up. Then we wander down the halls at 526 West 26th Street to see Old Master dealer C.G. Boerner’s contemporary offerings as well as the projects on view in David Krut’s gallery.

Back in 2010, Ben Levy and I made the rounds and discovered the superb work of South African artist Diane Victor at David Krut’s project space. The longest wall was salon-hung with Victor’s delicate and beautiful smoke drawings of black African men and children in which disembodied heads float on a white ground. You can’t help but be drawn in to investigate them more closely. We came to learn the drawings of adult males reflected men who were in prison awaiting trial, in other words, stuck in limbo. The children depicted were faces of those who were missing (Americans of a certain vintage will remember the missing children notices on our milk cartons). In both cases, they are people lost in the system.

​Victor draws with smoke emanating from a lit candle. (A short video of this process is here: https://youtu.be/-6E-BilDHkg.) Not only are the wispy marks ephemeral in a symbolic sense—these men and children have disappeared into the system—but also, they are literally ephemeral. The slightest touch to the surface will mar it irreparably. This delicacy reflects the precariousness of the situations these people find themselves in. The drawings are a great example of technique and meaning running in a tight conceptual circle. Even the titles, in which neither the man nor the child are named, adds to the sense of their loss—they are just numbers in the system.

Standing in David Krut’s space, several things became clear very quickly. The first being that Diane Victor is a very generous person. The drawings were very reasonable, meaning they were entirely accessible to institutions and young collectors. This indicated, to me anyway, that the artist felt these conversation starters needed to be spread far and wide. Second, as a result, red dots were being placed next to drawings as we stood there. They were selling fast. Now, acquisition choices are not arrived at in a vacuum; I needed the okay to place a drawing on reserve. The problem was the person who needed to see these powerful drawings and agree with me couldn’t come until the following day. I was truly worried they would all be gone. It all worked out in the end—we were able to acquire two drawings—but there were some tense moments there.

The website for The Artists’ Press (artprintsa.com) offers this description of the artist: “Diane Victor is somewhat like a spring, tightly coiled, tiny, and capable of great power…. She prefers imagery to words and the strength of her visual eloquence hits one in the gut and takes one's breath away.” The use of the term tightly coiled spring makes me smile because that is exactly how the writer Anaïs Nin described Stanley William Hayter: “a stretched bow or a coiled spring every minute, witty, swift, ebullient, sarcastic.” It seems both these high-energy artists are passionate about their message, craft, and sharing their talent with the world. My kind of artist.

Like Hayter, Victor is also a prolific printmaker, working mainly in etching. I truly regret not acquiring several prints for the museum, but alas, it was not meant to be. I am, however, always keeping an eye out for what she does next. Instagram, on which one can follow so many artists and printshops directly, reveals that Victor has been at Island Press, part of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis, working on a gorgeous, large-scale etching called Beware the Lap of Luxury. Island Press posted several images of Victor working on the plate that will thrill fans of printmaking and which I include in this post (thank you, Lisa Bulawsky, Director of Island Press, for the images). It’s a beauty and I can’t wait to see it in person, although when that might be remains a mystery since the fall New York print fairs have been cancelled. So many of us are crushed to not be able to see everyone in person, from galleries and publishers to artists and museum colleagues. It truly is a printmaking Shangri-La, which will be all the more special when it returns.

Diane Victor (South African, born 1964)
Smoke Screen 7 (Frailty and Failing), 2010
Smoke carbon from candle over graphite
Sheet: 660 x 508 mm. (26 x 20 in.)
Baltimore Museum of Art: Purchased in Honor of Rosalind Kronthal's Seventieth Birthday with funds contributed by her Family and Friends, BMA 2011.34
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Diane Victor (South African, born 1964)
Smoke Screen 9 (Frailty and Failing), 2010
Smoke carbon from candle over graphite
Sheet: 660 x 508 mm. (26 x 20 in.)
Baltimore Museum of Art: Purchased as the gift of Dr. Peyton Eggleston, Baltimore, BMA 2011.35

Salon-hung wall of Diane Victor's smoke drawings.

Diane Victor (South African, born 1964), Smoke Screen 7 (Frailty and Failing), 2010, smoke carbon from candle over graphite, 660 x 508 mm. (26 x 20 in.), Baltimore Museum of Art: Purchased in Honor of Rosalind Kronthal's Seventieth Birthday with funds contributed by her Family and Friends, BMA 2011.34

Diane Victor (South African, born 1964), Smoke Screen 9 (Frailty and Failing), 2010, smoke carbon from candle over graphite, 660 x 508 mm. (26 x 20 in.), Baltimore Museum of Art: Purchased as the gift of Dr. Peyton Eggleston, Baltimore, BMA 2011.35

Diane Victor (South African, born 1964). Beware the Lap of Luxury, 2020. Etching (hardground and softground), drypoint, and aquatint from steel plate on Hannemuhle Copperplate paper. More specifically, line etch with three stopouts, softground with lift transfers, and softground with drawing transfer, drypoint, and three aquatint bites. Sheet: 1016 x 1168 mm. (40 x 46 in.); plate: 914 x 1067 mm. (36 x 42 in.) Edition of 18. Island Press, Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University. Photo courtesy of Island Press, Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University. Photo courtesy of Island Press.

Diane Victor working on Beware the Lap of Luxury, 2020 at Island Press. Etching (hardground and softground), drypoint, and aquatint from steel plate on Hannemuhle Copperplate paper. More specifically, line etch with three stopouts, softground with lift transfers, and softground with drawing transfer, drypoint, and three aquatint bites. Sheet: 1016 x 1168 mm. (40 x 46 in.); plate: 914 x 1067 mm. (36 x 42 in.). Edition of 18. Island Press, Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University. Photo courtesy of Island Press, Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University. Photo courtesy of Island Press.

Diane Victor working on Beware the Lap of Luxury, 2020 at Island Press. Etching (hardground and softground), drypoint, and aquatint from steel plate on Hannemuhle Copperplate paper. More specifically, line etch with three stopouts, softground with lift transfers, and softground with drawing transfer, drypoint, and three aquatint bites. Sheet: 1016 x 1168 mm. (40 x 46 in.); plate: 914 x 1067 mm. (36 x 42 in.). Edition of 18. Island Press, Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University. Photo courtesy of Island Press, Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University. Photo courtesy of Island Press.

Diane Victor and Master Printer Tom Reed working on Beware the Lap of Luxury, 2020 at Island Press. Etching (hardground and softground), drypoint, and aquatint from steel plate on Hannemuhle Copperplate paper. More specifically, line etch with three stopouts, softground with lift transfers, and softground with drawing transfer, drypoint, and three aquatint bites. Sheet: 1016 x 1168 mm. (40 x 46 in.); plate: 914 x 1067 mm. (36 x 42 in.). Edition of 18. Island Press, Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University. Photo courtesy of Island Press, Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University. Photo courtesy of Island Press.