The Printed Illuminations of Peter Baczek

Light and simple geometric shapes, flat planes of color, and clear, descriptive lines that clarify object from negative space. All of that aptly describes the work of Californian artist Peter Bacezk, but his work contains so much more than mere description.

Peter Baczek has been a fixture of the northern California art scene for many years. He has worked in Berkley, and now resides in Oakland where he operates a printshop/studio. Go find it. It will be worth your while for a visit to a contemporary master precisionist.

Baczek's subject is the urban setting, showing us the terrain of his neighborhood; where homes, small shops and factories coexist. The clear clean light of northern California is a strong speaking point of his prints. The sky is crisp with its clarity, and reminds us that pure light is transcendent, revealing as much what is before us as much as it is a spiritual component of what is mystical and unseen around us.

Baczek capably handles the description of places without human inhabitants, yet his compositions are not lonely places. There is a presence to the work that someone is around, but we have just missed them. Batheing the compositions in light gives us a warm, and cared for feeling, which is different than the descriptive, yet empty feeling of Edward Hopper's places, or the cool precision of Charles Sheeeler's nearly abstract industrial work.

Baczek is describing places that are compelling, which is a challenge for quiet and spare locations such as his. We want to walk around the buildings, knock on the door of the houses and see who's inside. There is a quiet in the air about them, too, which one often feels when visiting the American southwest. The light is so intense is can drain the energy out of you, but here the light is warm and friendly. His colors are restrained, but vibrant.

His mesmerizing subject matter of ordinary, everyday street corners and rooftops captures the viewer’s attention by the sheer simplicity of his compositions.This artist creates a spirituality through his simplicity, and a balance between the natural world and the one manmade. It is a delicate balance, but one Baczek handles with aplomb.

Baczek, b.1945-, joins the ranks of other American greats. He quiets our day with his subtly challenging compositions and brings us a sense of peace. Enjoy, my inked up friends and share his work among yourselves, and your friends.

Permanent Collections
Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY
California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, CA
Edinboro University, Edinboro, PA
Graphic Chemical and Ink Company, Villa Park, IL
Library of Congress, Washington, DC
Metropolitan Museum and Art Center, Coral Gables, FL
Oklahoma Art Center, Oklahoma City, OK
Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ
University of California, Davis, CA
University of North Dakota, Fargo, ND

New York City's Immigrant Printmaker Martin Lewis

Australian-born printmaker, Martin Lewis (1881–1962) came from Castlemaine, Victoria. As a migrant to the United States, Lewis was deeply involved in the artistic scene of New York City during the 1920s and ‘30s and he lived in the city for most of his career.

Lewis portrayed all aspects of city life including workers, buildings, and the city’s inhabitants. He liked depicting the ladies walking to and from work in their wraps and high heels. He produced prints that captured the pulse of New York City; reading as a cross-section of urban life and the sprawl of suburbia.

Lewis came from a large family of eight children and at the age of 15 he set out to start his career as an artist; traveling to New South Wales and New Zealand. He mainly did heavy manual labor jobs before he returned to Sydney and settled into a Bohemian community.

During this brief period, some of Lewis’ art was published in Sydney’s newspaper, The Bulletin, and he studied at the Art Society's School with noted Australian artist/printmaker, Julian Ashton.

In 1900, Lewis left Australia for the United States. He went to California and got a job painting stage decorations for presidential campaigner William McKinley. Then he later moved to New York, where he worked as a commercial illustrator.

1915 is the first known date of a printed image by Lewis that we find, although it seems he was already familiar with the process. During this period, he helped Edward Hopper learn printmaking and when we see their images, we can see the similarities in composition, line and movement.

In 1920, Lewis traveled to Japan where he studied Japanese art. The influence of Japanese prints was very strong in Lewis's prints, when starting in 1925, he produced a group of eighty-one etching up until 1935. (This was out of his one hundred and forty-eight known images.)

Lewis's first solo exhibition in 1929 was successful enough for him to concentrate entirely on printmaking. Lewis is most famous for his black and white prints, mostly of night scenes of New York City. During the Depression, however, he left NYC between 1932 and 1936 and moved to Newtown, Connecticut. When Lewis returned to New York City, he discovered the interest in his work had passed. He also taught at the Art Students League from 1944 to 1951. He died in 1962 in New York City in relative obscurity.

In 2011, the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut, presented a highly acclaimed exhibition of Lewis’ work.

I have to say that Martin lewis' work grabbed me at first sight. It has a swing to it, and then there are images where we feel like the character he puts into the composition, where we look up at the skyscrapers of the city in awe, or look down upon the brightly lit street scenes at night.

Lewis' influence of Japanese art is strongly felt through his long diagonal lines and interesting angles of the street scenes. Whether the people of the city are heavily clad in their coats sloshing through a bitter winter scene, or barely clad in summer attire looking for a cool place to get in from the hot evening air, we feel the pulse of the city and the people that maneuver through it.

I especially enjoy how Lewis recreates the bluster of a winter snowstorm, and the steady gentle rain of spring.He understands the weather and its effects upon people in the street.

Likewise, i like how he handles groups of women going out at night together, or coming home after their work shifts. Also, the boys playing in the back of the yards neighborhood, burning their own evening fire, or the dockworkers against the New York skyline are a sight to behold for their individuality, and the stirring beauty of the city's architectural achievements at that time.

Lewis adopted New York City as his own, and his love of the city and its inhabitants is palpable. It goes to show that immigrants can entirely embrace the best and the worst of a different culture, sometimes more than the people who were born in their own country. Lewis loved the hustle and the rush of the city, and breadth of it's grandeur. We are fortunate to have rediscovered this printmaking treasure, for he has captured the essence of New York City as it was climbing in prominence, and became the mecca of the world.

Lisbeth Firmin Reaffirms the Solitude of the Urban Scene

A 'wow' moment occurs every time someone sees the prints of Lisbeth Firmin. You just can't help it. Her painterly background comes through so well that it could easily be assumed these were paintings, not prints.  But Firmin crosses that medium bridge, the same as have numerous other painters who have attempted that so-called step-child to real painting method called monotypes (sorry, not my opinion for I have done many, but some see it as experimental and not 'true' printmaking),  breaking up the routine of working on a canvas or panel. Firmin effortlessly 'crosses over' to the printmaker's side exuding confidence and a directness that captivate us just to see what she will do in black and white. 

The excitement created from seeing Firmin's ordinary(not) urban scenes of people walking down streets or standing on bus and train station platforms is arresting, in quite the same manner when looking at a John Sloan painting. She sees the moment which would appear on first glance to be rather innocuous, but stops it, and us, in time to see what she sees, and we can't help but to say, "Man, there's something good happening there." 

What initially captures my attention is Firmin's light and clarity. There is a respect for using the available light instead of manipulating it to work to her advantage.  It is clear for all to see what she's looking at, and she manages to get those moments we city dwellers and visitors have all seen in a large urban setting when it seems we are nearly alone except for one or two other people. It always seems impossible that cities have their lonely patches, but Firmin finds her own solitude again and again, showing us her affinity with Edward Hopper's isolated figures within a larger arena.

Firmin states that she is "a contemporary American realist whose imagery explores the relationship between people and their environment...depicting modern life while exploring timeless themes of solitude and isolation; interpenetrating the light and shadow that describe the human form in a specific moment."  She skates the rails between realism and abstraction the much the same way David Park, or some of Richard Diebenkorn's figurative work, does. Firmin wears her environment well, and casually shows us the big bad cities aren't really so bad after all. They may be full of people going about their business, absorbed in their own thoughts, but a street filled with people can make us feel just as alone as one with a solitary figure walking down the block. Alone-ness is relative; as much a product of our environment as our own mind.  

Firmin may show us points of isolation, but they never approach the point of voyeurism. We are a part of these images, not outsiders peering into their world. Neither is the black and white of her work cold or distant. Firmin's is a world warm and pulsating with life from those unseen. The below picture says to us, 'Hey, Look at that. Let's walk over and what's going on.'  I agree wholeheartedly. Let's.

Note* Lisbeth Firmin was born in Paducah, Kentucky , and now resides in the village of Franklin in upstate New York. She teaches painting/printmaking at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Winston Salem, NC, Truro Center for the Arts, Castle Hill, Cape Cod, and at the SVA's continuing education program. For more information on her work, see the link here .www.lisbethfirmin.com