Irving Amen, The Intellectual's Print Master

Irving Amen, (1918-2011) influential printmaker, painter and sculptor, was born in New York City. He began to draw at the age of four, and at fourteen he earned a scholarship to study at the Pratt Institute, 1932-1939. During this period, he was inspired by the drawings of Michelangelo, and copiously studied his technique to perfect his own draftsmanship. He later studied at New York’s Art Students League, and the L’Academie Grande Chaumiere in Paris. 

From 1942 to 1945 Amen served in the military during World War II, and did some mural work in Belgium and the Unites states during that period. After his service he returned to New York where he developed his craft in printmaking and painting. He worked primarily in relief and intaglio, often depicting themes of chess(and quite a nice series of them, too), portraits, music, Judaism and the story of Don Quixote.

Amen’s first print exhibition was at the New School for Social Research,  and in 1949 he had a solo exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution. Later notable exhibitions included the Artists House in Jerusalem, the Library of Congress and the National Academy of Design.

 Amen traveled to Italy in 1953 where he produced a large series of eleven woodcuts, eight etchings and a number of oil paintings. Note* “Piazza San Marco #4” and its four woodblocks, produced during this trip, are part of a Smithsonian Institution permanent exhibit on color block printing.

In the 1960s, Amen taught at the Pratt Institute and was a much beloved Instructor of Art at the University of Notre Dame, in South Bend, Indiana despite not having a degree. His travels in Israel, Greece and Turkey in 1960 also led to a retrospective show in Jerusalem. And in 1974, he was commissioned to illustrate The Epic of Gilgamesh in woodcuts, for the Limited Editions Club.

In his later years, Amen moved to Boca Raton, Florida where he lived and worked until Alzheimers’ affected his memory and he stopped teaching.

Amen’s style is largely reminiscent of the angular line and shapes found in German Expressionism artists like Karl Schmidt-Rotloff, Erich Heckel, and Max Pechstein, and the fractured Cubist-inspired works of Mauricio Lasansky and Robert Delaunay. His explorations in vibrant, expressive colors reflect an exuberance often found with Stanley William Hayter’s work whereas Amen’s works on religious and Jewish themes have a somewhat somber tone. Overall, his work speaks to the wonder and breadth of life, hope and intellect.

Amen’s work is included numerous major collections, including the following: United States The Art Museum of Princeton The Boston Museum of Fine Arts The Butler Institute The City of Philadelphia Public Library The Corcoran Gallery Dartmouth College The Fogg Art Museum The Jewish Museum, New York The Judah L. Magnes Memorial Museum The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Museum of Modern Art The New York Public Library The Philadelphia Museum of Art The Smithsonian Institution The University of Notre Dame Yale University Museum of Art International The Albertina Museum, Vienna The Auckland City Art Gallery, New Zealand The Bezalel National Museum, Jerusalem The Biblioteque Nationale, Paris The Biblioteque Royal, Brussels The Statische Museum, Germany  The Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Affiliations:
Society of American Graphic Artists

International Society of Wood Engravers

Audubon Artists

Commissions:

Peace Medal in honor of the Vietnam War

12 stained glass windows for the Agudas Achim Synagogue in Bexley, OH

Illustrations for The Epic of Gilgamesh, Limited Editions Club, 1974

Honors:

Mantle Fielding Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors and Engravers

Dictionary of Contemporary American Artists by Paul Cummings

 Portrait of Irving Amen

Elizabeth A. Jabar's Inseparable Marriage of Cultures

Elizabeth A. Jabar's work opens the door to a world, that to a Western eye, seems exotic and evocative of things seen and unseen: through veils and layers of understanding and visual combinations of tradition and observation. Jabar presents a mixture of different cultural elements that capture our attention and makes us curious about her selections of feminine imagery; and the perceptions of their creative history. Her art work, as seen in the image above,  incorporates printed images of Lebanese Bedouin women wearing traditional garments, with hand-sewn applique. The effect is a stunning reveal of what is not seen, what is covered up. The garments are covering the women completely except for the face, and upon closer inspection of traditional Lebanese dress, the fabrics and veils are gorgeously woven and combined to create an almost dizzying effect of texture and color.

The ornamentation of metal, jewelry and what appear to be hanging vines, or flowers, as found in the image below, add a layer of placement and adornment. The subtle layering that hand-sewing onto the print help to further obscure and veil the women, which are printed in half-tones so we have to strain to see them clearly, thus creating an aura of mystery and exoticism.

Jabar fluidly weaves between traditional forms of decorative arts from her Lebanese Bedouin heritage and combines them with her artistic sensibilities. She repeats matrix images and uses them as her starting point of reference, but her process of layering which may include several print process with collage and sewing, creates a denser image and one where the viewer has to concentrate harder to see what's underneath. The threads that weave and bind together her imagery make a symbolic connection between woven fabrics and cultural ties.

 Jabar's craft orientation also mandates that several  prints may become sewn together, continuing in the vein of  Middle Eastern woven fabrics. This affinity she has with her Bedouin past is respectfully played out in her execution and marries her interests in culture, media and art to create a meditative and intensely satisfying series for the eyes and for the senses.