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ACME Fine Art’s upcoming virtual
exhibition Print Portfolio will feature a selection of etchings,
lithographs, woodblock prints and silkscreens by artists Seong Moy,
Charles Littler, Grace Martin Taylor, Edwin Dickinson, George McNeil,
Lillian Burk Meeser and Agnes Weinrich. Although these artists are from
different generations and work in different styles, they all have a
Provincetown, Massachusetts connection in common. This will be ACME
Fine Art’s first
exclusively online exhibition. The exhibition will open on 1 April 2010
and will be accessible at www.acmefineart.com.
Edwin Dickinson was one of the first artists to rent at studio at Days
Lumberyard, which would later become Provincetown’s most vital studio
complex. Dickinson made etchings for a short period of time, primarily
during the year 1916, which “may have been motivated by the idea that
prints were easier to sell than paintings.*” Although Dickinson
did find etching to be profitable, by 1924 his preference for painting
had prevailed. As a result of his short time as a printmaker and his
small editions, Dickinson’s etchings are thus very rare. His etchings
from this period and on view in Print Portfolio are primarily
Provincetown scenes, including Cape Cod Birds and Montello Street, both
from 1916. Dickinson used fine, delicate lines to produce detailed, yet
powerful compositions. A number of Dickinson’s etchings were included
in Edwin Dickinson in Provincetown, 1912-1937, an exhibition at the
Provincetown Art Association and Museum in 2007.
Grace Martin Taylor is best known for her white-line woodblock prints,
otherwise known as Provincetown prints, which are made using the first
printmaking technique unique to the United States. The white-line
woodblock technique is derivative of Japanese woodblock printmaking, a
link that Taylor must have considered when composing her colorful
Japanese influenced images. To produce white-line woodblock prints,
colored inks were individually painted onto a section of a single
carved woodblock and printed, a painstaking process that required much
planning and drying time. White-line woodblock prints by Lillian Burk
Meeser and Agnes Weinrich will also be featured in the exhibition.
Seong Moy, Charles Littler and George McNeil were all associated with
Hans Hofmann early in their careers. Seong Moy, who emigrated from
China at the age of ten, learned printmaking as part of a WPA project
at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. His dynamic abstract woodcut
prints are an amalgamation of his Chinese artistic heritage and the
teachings of Hofmann. Moy taught painting and printmaking at many
institutions, most notably the Art Students League and Pratt Graphic
Center, in addition to forming his own school in Provincetown. Charles
Littler incorporated the wood grain texture into his graphic woodblock
prints. Using a limited palette of black and white, greens and browns,
Littler composed abstracts of thick, sinuous lines evocative of the
human form.
George McNeil’s use of brilliant colors and varying textures in his
silkscreens and lithographs parallels his painting style. McNeil
produced only a few color silkscreens in small editions during his
abstract expressionist period. In 1971 McNeil began a residency at the
Tamarind Institute at the University of New Mexico, where he learned
the technical skills of lithography. McNeil’s lithographs from the
1970s and 80s utilize these complex skills, while maintaining the
spontaneity of his paintings. McNeil’s prints are included in the
permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institute Print Collection.
Please contact the gallery at 617.585.9551 or info@acmefineart.com
for
more information about these artists or the exhibition. These works are
available for viewing at the gallery by appointment.
*Ward, John L. Edwin Dickinson: A Critical History of His Paintings.
Rosemount Publishing and Printing Corp., 2003.
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