Byron McClintock, “Homage to Charles Dean”
Born in Klamath Falls, Oregon,. Byron McClintock lived his life in Seattle, Washington, until he joined the Merchant Marine in 1946. Three years later, he settled in San Francisco, where he took art classes at the California School of Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute). Among his teachers were expressionist painters and printmakers Richard Diebenkorn, Edward Corbett and James Budd Dixon. He developed his skill as a printmaker working as Dixon’s assistant. At one point he shared a studio in the city with expressionist painter Ernst Briggs, a revolutionary in the genre of abstract painting..
Although he has made a number of paintings, McClintock is best known for his prints, which range from lithographs to drypoint etchings and mezzotints. Highly abstract, with an atmospheric use of color, they yet offer intimations of landscape. His work was included the Museum of Modern Art’s 1954 survey, “American Prints of the 20th Century,” at which time he was credited, along with Will Barnet and Ralston Crawford, with helping to bring color lithography in America to a par with work being done in Europe.