New Mexico Quarterly Volume 20 | Issue 2 Article 8 1950 Adja Yunkers John Palmer Leeper Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/nmq Recommended Citation Leeper, John Palmer. "Adja Yunkers." New Mexico Quarterly 20, 2 (1950). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/nmq/vol20/iss2/8 This Contents is brought to you for free and open access by the University of New Mexico Press at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in New Mexico Quarterly by an authorized editor of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. £ L· - ... Leeper: Adja Yunkers A.dja runkers By John Palmer Leeper H E MOST impressive sing~ quality of Adja Yunkers 1]" is his abso}utematurity as an at.tist. Each pr~nt is a com· plete, fecund statement. The nnpaet of hIS woodcuts., which I first saw unpacked and spread about the Print Room of the Fogg ~fuseum~ was deep and·satisfying-a recognition of the poised and powerful statement which places h~m in the tradition . ofmodem expressionism: Gauguin, Nolde, Heckel. Knowing Yunkers himself, following thecons~ntlyex.tending horizonsofhisarthave innoway lessenedappreciationofhis ·full.. ness and potency. In part these qualities may have grown from theassimilationwith thoughtandhigh witofrich, heterogeneous . experience. He was born in Riga, t~ined in Leningrad, Berlin, Paris and London, and later travelled through Central andSouth 19 1 Published by UNM Digital Repository, 1950 1 - iS$. L i. New Mexico Quarterly, Vol. 20 [1950], Iss. 2, Art. 8 19~ JOHN PALM Ell LEEPER. Americaf reaching thelVest Indies as a stowaway. then stoker. on a Danish freighter.