PRINTMAKERS A – Z: Selections from Georgetown's Collections

Benton, along with fellow artists John Steuart Curry and Grant Wood, ushered in America's Regionalist movement with their imagery of the rural scene. Here is his "Race" between an unbridled horse and a train. See a couple of Curry's and Wood's horses coming up below.

With this set, Cheffetz won 2nd prize at the Chicago World's Fair Print Exhibition in 1934. Note their tiny pencil signatures and their titles; when Cheffetz signed the twelve separate prints of his “A New England Calendar,” each measuring 3/4" x 1", he inscribed them as follows:

Snowbound          Covered Bridge
Seacoast               Trout Brook
Sugarbush             District School
April Shower         Autumn Hills
Spring's Bloom       Valley Village
June Moon            White Christmas

from "40 Varia" Dreier first created this important modernist print as a hand-colored lithograph in 1934, part of a set of 40 color variations. Marcel Duchamp took them to Paris in 1937 and there he supervised their coloring and signatures in pochoir. This is "Variation 12" from the resulting portfolio edition of 65.

In this etching, Eby has recorded the laying of the foundations for the building, "No-1, Wall Street," going up on the former site of the Irving Trust Company at the intersection of Broadway and Wall Street in front of Trinity Church.

. . and his pastoral "Winter 'Evening" of 1883 is another fine example of his work.

Gottlieb, a member of the Woodstock artists community and a sometime member of the Communist party, did this strong lithograph of social protest in the depths of the depression with its unemployed workmen huddled in pain and anger around a winter's fire.

A midwestern printmaker who taught at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Ibling produced this early serigraph entitled "Symphony" in 1941. Might it have been inspired by a performance of the Minneapolis Symphony?

Note how, with a masterful control of lithographic contrasts of light and darkness, Frederic James has recorded this night scene of oil drilling. Compare it with Frederick Yost's night of steel making below.

Jacob Lawrence, who died earlier this year, was one of the great African-American printmakers of the 20th century. His work focused on the history, life and culture of his people on the American scene.

"Genesis I.3" by Meissner was selected to follow "Andrew Goodman" for its message, "Let there be light," and for its remarkable tonal qualities as a wood engraving, similar to those found in Mauzey's lithograph.

Born in Sweden in 1678, Nordfeldt's family migrated to Chicago when he was thirteen. By 1900, he was studying the art of Japanese woodblock printing. By 1906, he did this early masterpiece, "Village Green - Twilight."

Osborne, the distinguished British etcher, was commissioned by the Printmakers Society of California to create this print as one of the Society's presentation prints for its membership in the early 1930s.

Represented in 43 museums, and recipient of over 50 awards, Quest is a recognized master of the woodblock, both in color and in black and white. In "Abstractions -New York," note how he moved from its state 1 to state 2 in sharpening up its image.

Also note Quest's use of strong line and compact form in rendering the human figure in his "Break Forth into Singing," a wood engraving done in the same year.

Schanker, after a study of Japanese woodcut techniques, took up the medium in the late 1930s and early 1940s and proceeded to create the bulk of his color woodcut oeuvre. Here is his "Acrobats" of 1939, together with his "St. George & the Dragon" done in 1941.

Taylor, a long-time member and counselor of the Washington Print Club, celebrated the life and culture of the African-American community in many of his prints. Here is his rendering of one of their baptismal services.

Ubac was a Belgian painter, sculptor, and printmaker of the Cobra school. In printmaking, he was noted for his color abstracts, a number of which were published in Derrière la Miroir in the 1950s and 1960s.

This is a lettering proof of a long-forgotten Baltimore artist, Charles Volkmar, Jr. It is one of our better serendipitous finds of 1999. "Carroll Cottage...," located in what is now known as Forest Glen, Maryland, was the home of the mother of John Carroll, the Founder of Georgetown University.

Wood, like his fellow artists Benton and Curry, gained fame as a Regionalist. Here are three of his horses, standing stoically by the gate, waiting for rescue from the "February" cold of a late winter's wind-driven snow.

Alfredo Ximenez is one of America's forgotten artists of the 1st half of the 20th century. All we know about him is that he worked as a WPA artist in New York during the great depression. His "Dancers" is also in the New York Public Library Collection and his second is "Mexican Canal." Neither is dated.

Zimmermann was a German printmaker noted for his cubist and surrealist imagery. He participated in many international exhibitions, and took the graphic arts prize at the 1956 Lugano Bienniel.