Albin Brunovsky: Slovakia's Surrealist Printmaker

Here's a curious image. No, wait, here's another one.

And another....
What the heck is this printmaker up to? Most everyone feels the same after seeing the work of Albin Brunovsky, one of Slovakia's most celebrated printmakers. His work combines a lot of information in minute detail, obsessively so, and he opens up our eyes to a unseen world within our universe. The complexity of his figures, mostly female. show his love of the feminine physique. Curvy, bouyant, yet serene.

Brunovsky creates a universe of oddly-shaped and obviously heavily-laden 'stuff' (for lack of a better phrase) on top of women's heads. They carefully carry their burdens upon their delicate necks as they effortlessly move about the composition, smiling at us as they walk by.

One can see his interest in the quirks of Northern Renaissance illuminations and paintings of Peter Bruegel. His play on perspective and scale is amusing and his elaborately developed composition details and interaction of characters borders on the erotic and just plain kooky.

Biography
Albín Brunovský has been widely considered one of the greatest Slovak painters of the 20th century. Born in 1935, in Zohor, Czechoslovakia, he studied art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava. The school was well known for its high degree of artistic and technical instruction in the graphic arts. Brunovský became a lecturer, and then a professor of art at that same school from 1966 to 1990. He later went on to establish his own engraving school.

Brunovský's work often followed suit with the ideas of Modern Art, and his illustrations were often used in children's books; many of which were done in watercolor. Brunovský was also the designer of the last series of Czechoslovak banknotes before the split between the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

His artwork was certainly influenced by poetry and literature. He explored the ideas expressed in surrealism—and the subconscious. with wild landscapes and seascapes, bare-breasted women and odd little creatures floating in the air. Brunovsky lets us dream of other places and other worlds . His linear qualities were magnificent, and his sensibility for the fantastic enduring.
Brunovsky influenced many artists and hopefully those of us who have not see this work before will re-examine and take inspiration from his work.

The Pride of Jamaica: Albert Huie

Jamaica's painter/printmaker Albert Huie - who died in 2010 at the age of 89, was a man truly in love with his work. He was born in the town of Falmouth, in Trelawny, and was a largely self-trained artist. Born into a poor family during colonial rule,  his grandmother was only person of his family who encouraged his artistic ambitions.

At 16 years of age, Huie moved to Kingston and took a position as a china painter.  His family wanted him to become a teacher so he began some formal art training with the Armenian painter Koren der Harootian. He then met and became a part of the circle of friends and acquaintances of sculptor  Edna Manley. She became one of Huie's first admirers and he later co-founded an art school with her called the Jamaica School of Art. He taught classes there from 1940-44.  

 In 1939, Huie's work was selected for two world art exhibitions, one at the New York World's Fair (he won a prize) and the San Francisco Golden Gate exhibition. He later exhibited his work in the United States, Canada, Cuba and England, including an exhibtion at  the Brandywine Workshop in Philadelphia.

Huie was more known as a painter, but he also did a series of relief prints. They are considered rare compared with the numbers of artworks he produced, but they are gemes of the local life in Jamaica and give us a glimpse into the story-telling world of the working-classes. Indeed, his black and white prints has been compared favorably with the Mexican muralist painter Diego Rivera, and they evoke a rhythmic, visceral passion for life.

 In 1943, Huie's  first major solo exhibition was at the Institute of Jamaica in Kingston, which was notable because it was the first solo show ever given there to any living Jamaican artist

Huie then went to the Ontario College of Art on a British Council Scholarship in 1944. He went on to study aesthetics at the University of Toronto.  Later that same decade,  he moved to Britain and studied at the Leicester College of Art, and the Camberwell School of Art in south-east London, were he studied under artists Victor Pasmore and Claude Rogers.

The National Gallery’s Chief Curator, Dr. David Boxer said,  “Albert Huie in these early days turned principally to portraits and to figure compositions which dealt with the everyday life of the average Jamaican. Baptismal scenes, the reaping of crops, market vending, washing by the river, all became subjects for his precocious talent.”

By the early 1950s, Huie’s style was fully developed. His work was relatively small in scale but it possessed an epic, monumental feel reminiscent of Diego Rivera’s murals.  His visual ties are also aligned with artists like Cortez, Millet, and Courbet in that he chooses to show the masses working together, although one doesn't sense the drudgery of the job as much as a comraderie of a team effort to complete a task.

Dr. Boxer also wrote, “Huie has subjected reality to  into a single composition showing a myriad of activities: growing sugar cane, hoeing, planting, reaping, dressing, sorting, bundling, and carting, all enacted against the almost Cubist backdrop of the sugar factory.”

The only thing that seemed a slight to Huie's artistic dominance in Jamaica was that the intellectual elite of his own countrymen had turned away from the type of art ne produced in favor of the untutored, Rastafarian-influenced artists, whose work resembles Haitian voodoo imagery. These were thought to be more representative of Jamaican sensibilities  linking themselves with African their African roots.

In spite of that, Huie was often described as the father of Jamaican art. He produced folkloric simplified compositions, showing his love of Jamaica's rich landscape and its beautiful people. His legacy is still growing and we can only hope the people of Jamaica and the world continue to embrace his rhythmic and sincere depictions of the working class.

Huie 's genial personality was much loved and he was always celebrated whenever he returned to Jamaica.


Awards:
The Institute of Jamaica, Silver Musgrave medal -1958
The Institute of Jamaica, Gold Musgrave medal -1976
The Order of Distinction -1983
Commander of the Order of Distinction -1992
Jamaican postage stamp, "The Vendor"

Mauricio Lasansky 1914-2012, Beloved Patriarch of American Printmaking

Sometimes, if we're lucky, we encounter an artist who reminds us of things outside the scope of our everyday lives. Sometimes its their work, or its their life as an artist that makes us catch our breath and we are surprised, shocked or stupefied into awe at what they say with their work, and how they do what they do. Such is the man, artist and teacher known as Mauricio Lasansky.

Before I embark upon the biography of this amazing man, I want to relate some thoughts. I will confess that I dreaded the day would come when the famed and highly esteemed printmaker/teacher Mauricio Lasansky would leave this world for a better place. I mourned his passing as though my own grandfather had died, because I felt in fact he was my artistic and spiritual ancestor. At least, that's what I came to feel having studied with one of his students, Robert Wolfe, at Miami University(OH). 

Wolfe's stories of having studied at the US printmaking mecca in the 1950s was all about teaching us 'print newbies' the history of this medium and the noble merits of one's blood, sweat and toil on a piece of  metal plate; to create a message that will burn itself into the viewer's memory, or at least tell a story. One of his first year graduate student tales related to one's fear of the initial mark, diving into the abyss not knowing what the image will be but going at it headlong with no restraint. He told us that all first year graduate students had to first do a self-portrait engraving on a full sheet of copper. After they completed that phase of the project,  they were told to completely scrape down the image as though it never existed. Wolfe always brought out examples of that first endeavor for us to admire,  then he carefully taught us how to use the tools to make our own self-portrait engraving. One felt the meticulousness of his[Wolfe's] teaching method was handed down from the Master, and we all aspired to do well with our own project. It was inherently understood that not only our professor, but Lasansky himself was watching what we were doing. I digress, but I think you understand, that was the way it was done, and the Only way it should be done. The connection to him, albeit through his students, was so strong that we felt as though we were taught by Lasansky himself. One can see it is a great testament to his influence and contributions to the medium. Now for the real article....

Mauricio Leib Lasansky (1914-2012) was an Argentine-American graphic artist and printmaker. He chose to focus his artistic energies on the development of printmaking and drawing, thus making him one of a few Modern era artists to do so. The result is a life full of experimentation and dedication to his craft. Lasansky is widely considered to be one of the pioneers in the graphic arts evolution and making the art world look at the medium as critically as any other field. He will forever be enshrined as one of the first and best generations of artists who have defined and guided printmaking in the United States. He is revered as one of the true "Fathers of 20th Century American Printmaking."

Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Lasansky’s  parents were Eastern European Jews; his Lithuanian-born father, who had made his way to Argentina via North America, had worked as a printer and engraver at the US Mint in Philadelphia. As a talented and ambitious young man of 22, Lasansky became Director of the Free Fine Arts School, in Villa Maria, Cordoba, Argentina. Six years later, he was honored with the first of five highly coveted Guggenheim Fellowships, and he went to the United States to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to study their print collection, which numbers well over 100,000! While there, he learned the history of printmaking and networked with other artists who had also moved to the states. 

After Mauricio married Emilia Barragan in 1937, he began to exhibit his work, regularly winning awards and prizes, and  in the 1940s he and many other artists began to work in printmaking through the WPA graphic arts workshops. Several printmaking studios were established and Lasansky chose to work at the famous Atelier 17, which was established by British artist Stanley William Hayter. Atelier 17 was the first independent American workshop devoted to the Intaglio printmaking process and it developed an international reputation. The artists from this era , like Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock, who also worked at Atelier 17, are now referred to as the New York School and their Abstract Expressionist method of working changed intaglio printmaking in America. Many of these artists’ experiments in intaglio printmaking lead to them being invited to organize printmaking departments in universities all across the country.

In 1945, Lasansky was invited to direct and teach the printmaking program at the University of Iowa, in Iowa City, IA. The program became one of the premiere places to study printmaking in the US, producing hundred and hundreds of artists/teachers. At the time of his death, Lasansky was recognized as the Virgil M. Hancher Professor Emeritus, head of Printmaking in the School of Art and Art History, where he had taught for more than forty years.

 Many of Lasansky's former students went on to teach at reputable universities to spread the word about printmaking. Some of those former students include Keith Achepohl, Glen Alps, Lee Chesney, David Driesbach, John Ilhe, John Paul Jones, and Robert Wolfe.  The passing of the printmaking torch from generations of teachers to students is what marks the legacy of Atelier 17, Hayter and Lasansky.  

Lasansky’s art is known for his large scale prints (some being four by eight feet in length), utilizing multiple plates (up to 60) and in full color. He even designed a specially-milled French paper for his prints so they would withstand a large amount of printing which often combined etching, drypoint, aquatint and engraving intaglio techniques. Throughout his career, he preferred figurative subjects, seeing them as important as the technical side of his work.

Lasansky is internationally known for a series that marked a departure from his beloved intaglio method, The Nazi Drawings, This series speaks in a most raw and scathing manner about the brutality of Nazi Germany upon its victims. He worked six years on the project, which consists of thirty individual life-sized pieces and one triptych. Their effect upon the viewer is shock and horror. His figures are like ghosts passing through Hell, and he shows them living through their fears in a nightmare that disgustingly was real.  Surprisingly, the drawings were created primarily with lead pencil on common commercial paper. "I wanted them to be done with a tool used by everyone everywhere. From the cradle to the grave, meaning the pencil." And speaking of his inspiration, he said…“The Hitler years were in my belly, and I tried many times to do the drawings,” he said. “But then I decided, the hell with it. Why don’t I just put down what I feel? The fact is that people were killed — how cool can you play that?” The Nazi Drawings was one of the first exhibits ever shown at the  Whitney Museum of American Art and have been exhibited in many prominent art museums. They can now be seen at University of Iowa Museum of Art.

In closing, Mauricio Lasansky created some of the most powerful images in contemporary art. He has contributed significantly to printmaking being considered a critical and serious art form of the 20th century and for that our [printmakers] debt to his commitment cannot be repaid.

Awards and Honors:

*Five Guggenheim Fellowships!

*Six honorary Doctorate of Arts degrees

*His work is represented in more than one hundred public collections including virtually EVERY major museum in the United States i.e. the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC., the Art Institute of Chicago  and the Brooklyn Museum of Art.

*Internationally recognized, he has been exhibited throughout North and South America, Europe and Russia.

*Became a US citizen in 1952

Experience Susan Goldman's Exotic Moroccan Amphoras

The lush, densely patterned textures found in Susan Goldman's Amphora series are quite a sight to behold.

 Their amazing interplay between form and rich color and mark-making is reminiscent of a number of artists whose subject matter derives from the vessel - Giorgio Morandi and William Bailey, but her work also addresses the complexity of mark-making and are visually entertaining. In fact, part of the inspiration for this series comes from her exposure to north Africa and the incredible culture and rhythms of Morocco; its architecture, applied arts, and music. 

Goldman's work speaks also to the history of these forms which have been used for centuries to transport fish, grains, spices, oil and wine as a part of a tradition established to transport goods across the Mediterranean Sea. Goldman's amphoras don't liken themselves to containers, but her interest in the form is for the shape itself. Her compositions are full of tightly-compressed,  but not flattened spaces where the amphoras look as though they are floating in a sea of mark-making waves. Their visual relationship to Cubism is clear given the artist's display of them in a multi-dimensional space of hide and seek. 

The vessels' elongated necks and delicate handles are enjoyable to see, but it's her layering of the forms with patterned designs as seen in Morocco's Islamic buildings and applied arts that are create an intriguing dimension to the work. The image below suggests the viewer is looking through a screen in a harem  at an exotic interior. 

Likewise, a pleasant surprise in the piece below is an obscuring of the vessels' forms  for the clarity more often seen in her prints. One can feel from it feels rhythms of music and aromatic scents moving through the air. It also has a closer affinity with the work and colors of contemporary printmaker Karen Kunc, with whom Goldman has previously worked.

The infinity of geometric-inspired Islamic design patterns lend themselves well to Goldman's vessels and the multiculturalism of the Mediterranean. They become as timeless as the objects they derive from, but they are also a part of the present-day environment which anyone wanting to go print in Assilah should do so at their earliest opportunity.

Below is a view of the Mediterranean Sea at Assilah.

For more information about Ms. Goldman's prints contact at: goldmanprint@comcast.net

For information regarding Assilah's print center contact: Assilah International Cultural Moussem http://www.c-assilah.com

Some of Ms. Goldman's Activities and Awards:

Founder/Master Printer, Lily Press, Rockville, MD

Professor of Printmaking/Master Printer, Navigation Press, George Mason University, VA

2008  Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County Special Projects Grant

2005  Coordinator Southern Graphics Council International Conference “Power in Print”

2000  Artist-in-Residence, Assilah Foundation, Assilah, Morocco

Founder and co-curator since 1993 of The Art of Work, The Work of Art ©

1990 – 2000, Special Projects Coordinator, Master Printer, & Book Arts Fair Coordinator for Pyramid Atlantic

MFA - Arizona State University, in Printmaking

BFA -  Indiana University, in Printmaking, 1981

James Lesesne Wells: African-American Printmaking Pioneer

As a part of our on-going series, History of Influential Printmakers, I came across the work of James Lesesne Wells and I think you will agree, his legacy in printmaking helped to promote the work of hundreds of young artists and he furthered the field of printmaking, especially for the masses of African-Americans whose opportunity to see and purchase original works of art were limited. 

James L. Wells was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1902, and raised in Florida. Wells’ artistic childhood was influenced by his parents’ religious beliefs, and his interest in teaching started as he helped his other run a daycare fro children. As a child, Wells used to stencil designs on the prayer meeting room walls of his father’s Baptist church and this lead him to study art. He attended the Florida Normal and Industrial Institute,  Lincoln University, and eventually earned both his Bachelors and Masters degrees at  the Teachers College of New York's Columbia University. He also studied one year at Stanley William Hayter's famed Atelier 17 workshop in New York.

Wells became a prolific printmaker and made his living for a time illustrating books and journals for the Crisis and Opportunity; two of the day's important black magazines.  Wells forged friendships with black scholars, including philosopher Alain Locke and historian Carter G. Woodson. These connections also led him to book illustration. He moved to Washington D.C. in 1929 and began teaching art at Howard University, where he would remain for thirty nine years. 

The Works Progress Administration used prints to make art available to the masses, this it was at this point Wells dedicated himself entirely to printmaking and developing his craft. Wells credited the impact of seeing a first ever exhibition of African sculpture at the Brooklyn Museum of Art as changing the way he thought about art and how much it affected his style from that point on. Another major influence upon his work was a trip he took to West Africa after his retirement from Howard. the images he saw there emboldened his use of color and powerful images. He loved the raw power of German Expressionist woodcuts and Cubism's use of African sculpture and ceremonial masks toward abstraction. The themes of his work often revolved around  mythological, religious, social/political messages, violence, seduction, and civil rights.  

Wells' work addressed the history and experiences of African-Americans and the working class, and after Wells married Ophelia Davidson in 1933, he became active in anti-segregation protests in Washington D.C. because her brother,Eugene Davidson, was president of the local chapter of the NAACP. 

Wells enjoyed numerous exhibits in galleries and museums worldwide, including the Corcoran, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, and Baltimore art museums, the Society of American Graphics in New York, Fisk University, a 50 year retrospective at Howard University,The Washington Project for the Arts and the Harlem Studio Museum.

James Lesesne Wells left a mark on the art world that goes beyond his own work as a painter and printmaker. He was also one of the earliest American artists to concentrate his efforts on printmaking.

Awards

Harmon Foundation, Gold Medal, 1931

Smithsonian Institution, First prize, Religious Art Exhibition, 1958

Van Der Zee Award, Afro-American History and Cultural Museum, 1977 

Presidential citation by Jimmy Carter for lifelong contribution to American art, 1980

"James L. Wells Day" declared by Mayor Marion Barry, Washington DC, 1984

Living Legend Award, National Black Arts Festival, 1991

Gabor Peterdi's Call to Nature

Hungarian born Gabor Peterdi (1915-2001) has been known to thousands of printmakers, and is widely considered one of the great innovators of the print medium in the 20thc. Born in Pestujhely, Peterdi's parent sent him to study art at the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts at the age of 15. He won a Prix de Rome and studied there a year before heading to Paris and studying at the Academie Julian. He then spent six years studying engraving with the American-born master printmaker Stanley William Hayter at Atelier 17 before emigrating to New York City in 1939.

Once Peterdi came to the US, he served in the Army in Europe during World War II, and then came back to New York work with Hayter, who had since moved there. He went on to teach at the Honolulu Academy of Art, the Brooklyn Museum School of Art,  Hunter College, and at the prestigious Yale School of Art. His book on printmaking, ''Printmaking: Methods Old and New,'' has been used worldwide as  the definitive textbook for printmaking courses. 

Although Peterdi was in New York when Abstract Expressionism reigned supreme, he chose to emphasize his love for nature.The majority of his work is abstracted, but his themes revolve around  man, nature and their interrelationships. This particular group of images selected for this article speak to his interest in natural forms, and the coloration reminds one of flowers,birds, bushes and an infusion of light streaming through trees. The image above calls to some horizon where the sun never stops shining,while the last image can be seen as a stalk or stem, or even an abstracted vertebrae of some animal. The areas sourrounding it resemble sediment and excavations of things found when we start to garden; finding the treasured remnants of bones our dogs hope to keep for an afternoon of blissful gnawing. There is a form of abstracted pictographic language going on here; and it's one that if you weren't educated to know it's signs or symbols it wouldn't keep you from enjoying the images that he's placed together. There is synaptic energy going on here, and the viewer's eye moves easily throughout.

While I have certainly known of Peterdi's reputation as a great teacher,  I have not seen or really known much about his work. My understanding of him, being from the Midwest and exposed indirectly to the University of Iowa influence of Mauricio Lasansky, was that his friendly Picasso/Matisse-like rivalry with Lasansky helped to establish two major printmaking programs in this country; both of which have trained scores of printmakers, teachers, curator, historians and gallerists. Their collective influence has been felt far and wide, not just in this the United States, but also having  trained many printmakers worldwide. Peterdi is one of  Printmaking's Elite, and the impact of him as a person, teacher and his work will continue to be felt for a very long time.

Elizabeth Dove Prints:On Tactile Remembrance and Being Human

Elizabeth Dove's prints and photographs take the viewer on a journey some of us may not want to make. Yet, there is a honesty in their openness which quickly changes the viewer's mind to decide this journey may be worth the effort and something we can all relate to.

Dove  uses objects like wishbones, hair, ladders, stitching, words and letters from dictionaries and writings from hers and others' journals to conduct a visual search for what it is to be human. This journal series uses her own body as a canvas; the basis for all the things going on in her mind, and in her own world of experience, to try to make sense of what obviously confuses us all - life, hope, fear, joy, and loss. The  image above is from Dove's "First Year" project relating to becoming a mother and the things one's body goes through in having a child - fluctuations in the body itself as it expands, contracts, hormonal swings, stitching it back together.

I am intrigued with her previous "Tabula" series(pictured above), which looks like clusters of red blood cells and the scarification of one's own skin, stitched ladders doubling as chromosome strains and rope knots -intact and cut off - which would suggest her hope for what becomes "The First Year".

Dove exaggerates the flesh tone of her skin to the a blood red, to emphasize what is beneath the skin, what keeps us living and what connects us as human beings. The realization of the series is a complete intermingling of blood cells on the composition and her son's footprints on Tabula V.

A more recent series entitled, "But I Don't Know Why..." is about a significant loss, unfinished conversations and questions without answers. This series resonates such an open wound of the artist that it may be hard for the viewer to see, but it speaks a topic most of us have also experienced.  Dove has written notes and thoughts from her journals on her own body and photographed them for all to see. The jumbled, rambling effect this creates re-emphasizes the thoughts one has after such a profound loss, the things one keeps inside their heads, ruminating conversations and reliving the grief over and over, trying to make sense of what will never be understood.

Dove is making hard, solid work. There are some visual associations with artists like Kiki Smith, Andres Serrano, and artists who use ink and paint to cover one's body (however those are often for political/erotic purpose), but Dove's not speaking as an outside observer to someone else's tragedy, design ideas or eroticism. She's putting herself out there for everyone to see, using her own thoughts and body for her work.And in a period where art seems to speak of the absurdity and media splash of cut up animals in formaldehyde and ill-conceived performance, Dove's work will have a lasting impact and an audience that grows to appreciate the human element her ideas and their execution.