Tag: lithography

Dario Wolf

Dario Wolf, “Gli Amici, (The Friends)”, 1924, Copper Etching, 16.7 x 13 cm, Private Collection

Dario Wolf was born in Trento, Italy on December 3, 1901. He completed high school in Rome with honors in the art of composition and painting of the nude. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts under the guidance of Sigismund Lipinskj. In 1924, still a student, Wolf won the Calderon prize for his entered drawing of a nude.

He started his career as an engraver in 1921 with the wood engraving “Furor Animae” and established himself as an etcher with the plates “Powerful-Powerless”, “Superstition” and “Destiny”. He was a member of the Group of Engravers and Roman Artists, composed of twenty-five Italian and foreign artists.

Dario Wolf devoted himself to the process of etching on metal and the technique of aquatint, producing “The Accordion Player”, on a large zinc plate in 1957. He was one of the very few who devoted themselves to engraving in steel technology, the “black style” as attested by his important 1963 engravings:: his “Ethiopian” in 1966,  and his “Vicolo dei Birri” in 1968.

“Etching is an art that can benefit more than any other to express moods fleeting, to realize the innermost thoughts and most complex, to express the life of things real and unreal atmosphere that goes from deep velvety shadows stretched to wrap lights enchanted ”- Dario Wolf

Sonia Gechtoff

Sonia Gechtoff, Top Image: “Children of Frejus”, 1959, Oil on Canvas, Denver Art Museum    Bottom Image: “Tropics”, 1983, Color Etching with Embrossing, Edition of 50, Antique-White German Etchng Wove

Sonia Gechtoff was a prominent Abstract Expressionist painter who experimented with styles and materials throughout her life. She was born in 1926 in Philadelphia, into a family with art it its genes. Her father was a painter and her mother was a gallery owner. Gechtoff received her BA in Fine Arts from the Philadelphia Museum School of Art in 1950. At that time she abandoned figurative art in favor of the abstract.

Sonia Gechtoff also at this time started working with a palette knife to apply her paint on canvas rather than the traditional brush. Sonia refined her palette knife technique, and by the late 1950s, the slashing marks, often applied in a vortexlike way, were a hallmark of her work. In the 1980s, she expanded that technique with increasingly larger and less-controlled acrylic paintings that had elements of realism, architectural and landscape images. She continued to experiment and produce new work in a range of media throughout her life.

Sonia Gectoff, a mainstay of the New York art scene, passed away in February, 2018, at a hospice center in Bronx, New York at the age of 91.

Eduard Wiiralt

Eduard Wiiralt, Title Unknown, Lithograph, 1926-34, Private Collection of Juhani Komulainen

Eduard Wiiralt was a well-known Estonian graphic artist, considered as a master of Estonian graphic arts in the first half of the 20th century. At the age of 17 Wiiralt entered Tallinn School of Applied Art where the Estonian painter and draughtsman Nikolai Triik exerted a srong influence on his work. Wiiralt continued his studies in Tartu at the art school Pallas in the sculpture studio of Anton Starkopf, learning the art of engraving.

Durig the period of 1922-23 his works contained a influence of the current German Expressionism. In 1924 he graduated form the Graphics Art Department of the Pallas school and led its graphic studio during the following year. He moved to Paris in 1925, remaining there without interruption until 1938. It was in Paris that he created his etching entitled “Hell”.

In 1937 the International Graphic Exhibition in Vienna recognized him as the leading engraver in Europe, honoring him with its Gold Medal. Wiiralt lived and worked in Marrrakesh, Morocco for six months starting in July of 1938, when he returned back to his homeland Estonia. At the end, he lived in Sceaux, a commune in Southern Paris until his death at the age of 55 in 1954. His complete work consists of some 450 engravings, etchings, wood engravings and lithographs in collections in Europe and America.

Illustrations for “Lord of the Flies”

Various Artists’ Illustrations for  “Lord of the Flies”

“Somewhere over the darkened curve of the world the sun and moon were pulling; and the film of water on the earth planet was held, bulging slightly on one side while the solid core turned. The great wave of the tide moved further along the island and the water lifted. Softly, surrounded by a fringe of inquisitive bright creatures, itself a silver shape beneath the steadfast constellations, Simon’s dead body moved out towards the open sea.”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

Austen Henry Layard

Austen Henry Layard, “Depiction of Anzu (Tiamat) Pursued by Ninurta (Marduk)”, 1853, from the Book “Momuments of Nineveh”, Second Series, Plate 19/83, J. Murray Publisher, London

In Enûma Elish, a civil war between the gods was growing to a climactic battle. The Anunnaki gods gathered together to find one god who could defeat the gods rising against them. Marduk, a very young god, answered the call and was promised the position of head god.

To prepare for battle, Marduk makes a bow, fletches arrows, grabs a mace, throws lightning before him and fills his body with flame. He then makes a net to encircle Tiamat within it, gathers the four winds so that no part of her could escape, and creates seven powerful new winds such as the whirlwind and the tornado. Raising up his mightiest weapon, the rain-flood, Marduk then sets out for battle, mounting his storm-chariot drawn by four horses with poison in their mouths. In his lips he holds a spell and in one hand he grasps a herb to counter poison.

First, he challenges the leader of the Anunnaki gods, the dragon of the primordial sea Tiamat, to single combat and defeats her by trapping her with his net, blowing her up with his winds, and piercing her belly with an arrow.

Then, he proceeds to defeat King, who Tiamat put in charge of the army and who wore the Tablets of Destiny on his breast, and “wrested from him the Tablets of Destiny, wrongfully his” and assumed his new position. Under his reign humans were created to bear the burdens of life so the gods could be at leisure.

Hendrick Goltzius

Hendrick Goltzius, “Four Studies of Hands”

Hendrick Goitzius was a German-born Dutch printmaker, draftsman and painter. He was the leading Dutch engraver of the early Baroque period, noted for his sophisticated technique. He arrived in Haarlem at age nineteen. Two years later, he set up a workshop. He left Haarlem only once to visit Germany and Italy in 1590 to 1591, bringing home a more classical, naturalistic art that shifted Dutch artists away from the eccentric Mannerist style. His panoramic, open-air drawings of Holland’s scenery, among the earliest Dutch landscapes, paved the way for younger artists like Rembrandt van Rijn.

Famous for his printmaking, Goltzius worked in secret and never showed an unfinished work. By 1600 he had abandoned the burin for the brush. His eyesight was failing due to years of painstaking work with engraving tools, and, like his contemporaries, he believed painting to be superior to printmaking. He died in 1617, never achieving the same quality on panel as he had on paper.

Hans Emi

Hans Emi, “Der Techniker und Seine Umwelt”, Date Unknown, Color Lithograph on Paper, Edition of 21

Hans Emi was a Swiss graphic designer, painter, illustrator, engraver and sculptor. He studied art at the Academic Julian in Paris and later in Berlin. He is known for having illustrated postage stamps, his lithogrphs for the Swiss Red Cross and his participation on the Olympic Committee.

On January 10, 2009 Hans Emi received the Swiss Award for Lifetime Accomplishment. In his career, he designed about 300 posters and several murals (for the Red Cross, the International Olympic Committee, the United Nations, the International Civil Aviation Organization, and many other public and private enterprises. Throughout his career as an artist, he illustrated about 200 books and created designs for 90 postage stamps and 25 medals.

Su Xinping

Artwork by Su Xinping

Born in Jining City of Inner Mongolia in 1960, Su Xinping was accepted into the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts in 1979. Following completion of his studies at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing in 1989, Su began to produce intimate black-and-white depictions of the social transformations occurring during the decade of open policy promoted by Deng Xiaoping. His works expressed a deep concern for the issues surrounding isolation and the lack of communication among the people at this time.

Su Xinping on his more recent works：“My recent work is about two themes – the urban landscape series and the toasting series. In the urban landscape series I want to express the impact of urbanisation on people. In the toasting series I use irony to reveal issues of city life and the interaction of people – particularly in business and politics.”

His works have been collected by the British Museum, San Fransico MOMA, National Gallery of Victoria (Australia), Fukuoka Museum of Art (Japan) and National Art Museum of China.

He is currently Vice President (2014) of China’s Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA).

Aaron Coleman

Aaron Coleman, “The Flight Of A Torn Kite”, 2014, Five-Color Lithograph, 30.5 x 40.6 cm, Private Collection

Aaron S. Coleman is an artist and educator living in Dekalb, Illinois.  He received his Master of Fine Arts degree from Northern Illinois University in the spring of 2013.  Aaron is a mixed media printmaker utilizing mezzotint, lithography, intaglio, relief and serigraphy to create works focused on political and social commentary.  He combines imagery from comic books and stained glass windows to raise questions concerning misconstrued belief systems and twisted moral values in our society.

Aaron is an adjunct instructor at Northern Illinois University where he teaches various printmaking courses.  He also teaches traditional stone lithography at the Chicago Printmakers Collaborative and drawing at Elgin community College.  Aaron stays in tune with the printmaking community, organizing portfolio exchanges and exhibiting both nationally and internationally.  In 2012 he organized an international mezzotint exchange titled “Both Sides Of The Brain” which hosted 17 artists from 6 different countries.  The portfolio was exhibited across the U.S. at several universities and galleries.

Colin See-Paynton

Colin See-Paynton, “The Hare and Moonshadows”, Woodcut, Edition of 75, 12.7 x 17.8 cm, Private Collection

In 1972, See-Paynton moved to a remote farmhouse in Wales, on to which he built his studio. Entirely self-taught as an engraver, he began to make prints in 1980 and has since produced over 250 editions.

Colin has brought a new vitality to one of the earliest forms of printmaking- woodcuts. Although his work is based on the meticulous observation of the natural world, his talent is to invent compositions which distil the ecological and behavioural relationships of the species and their habitats.

He uses his knowledge and imagination to construct engravings of great complexity and refinement and has evolved something new by the patterning and layering of his images. Later compositions, particularly those from an underwater viewpoint, use an increasingly abstract and fluid line to capture the fast and fleeting movements of birds and fish.