Storytelling and Printmaking the Journal | 2006 • • • • • Following Individualsinvolved Withthepublicationofthisjournal
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the California Printmakerthe journal of the California soCiety of printmakers | 2006 Storytelling and Printmaking The Journal 2006 Acknowledgments GUEST EDITOR David A. Beronä “‘Men work together,’ I told him from the heart, DESIGN AND PRODUCTION 132 Studio, San Francisco, CA ‘Whether they work together or apart.’” PRINTING These two lines from a poem by Robert Frost speaks best to my belief that I do not Inkworks, Berkeley, CA work in isolation and that anything that I do always involves the hands of others. FRONT COVER IMAGES This was especially true with this project. I would like to extend my thanks to the William Gropper, The Speaker, 1938-41 following individuals involved with the publication of this journal. from a series of ten lithographs “The Senate.” Lithograph, 113/4"x153/4". Printer: Gene Gropper. • First and foremost, I wish to extend my deepest appreciation to Jan Baetens, Olivier Duprez, Le Château de Kafka, Norma S. Steinberg, and Sarina Rodrigues Wyant for working so closely with me Brussels: Frémok, 2003. Woodcut, 91/4" x7". on such a tight schedule. Fritz Eichenberg, St. Francis and the Fishes, WPA 1935-36, artist proof. Wood engraving 7 3/4" x6". • Art Hazelwood, who initially suggested that I guest edit this issue. • CSP President Benny Alba and Margaret-Ann Clemente for their initial advice ©2006 The California Society of Printmakers. and words of encouragement. All rights reserved. Copyrights of all images remain with the artists unless otherwise stated. • Rose E. O’Brien for her proofreading and valuable insight. • 132 Studio for their design and production. California Society MEMBERSHIP INFORMATION: of Printmakers The California Society of Printmakers, founded in 1913, is an international nonprofit BOARD MEMBERS arts organization that promotes the appreciation of prints and printmaking. A majority PRESIDENT of the CSP’s current members live and work in California, but membership extends Benny Alba throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, South America, Europe and Asia. SECRETARY m. e. foster ACTING TREASURER Membership categories include: artist, associate, patron and honorary. Artist Peter Leone McCormick members are admitted only by portfolio review. DIRECTORS EXHIBITIONS SEND INQUIRIES TO: Lars Johnson California Society of Printmakers PUBLICITY Lila Warthaftig PO Box 475422 EducatiON OutreacH San Francisco, CA 94147 Patricia Theobald Payne 2006 Jerry Theobald | PORTFOLIO REVIEW CSP VOICEMAIL: (415) 905-4296 Jenny Robinson WEB SITE: www.caprintmakers.org ournal BROWN BAG PROGRAMS j m. e. foster EMAIL: [email protected] he t NEWSBRIEF EDITOR Linda Yoshizawa AT LARGE Kristian Johnson-Michiels 2 Editor’s Note CONTENTS Storytelling and Printmaking 2 When I was a child, my father read stories to me at bedtime. Although Storytelling in these stories entertained me, I enjoyed more the picture books without words when my father created the stories himself. I learned to read pic- Gropper’s tures from my father and began reading pictures to my younger sisters as Late Etchings I grew older. I discovered the secrets of storytelling in pictures in libraries by Norma S. Steinberg and developed an imagination that found sustenance in the graphic works of Heinrich Kley, Alfred Kubin, Odilon Redon, and Max Klinger, particu- larly his “Glove” series. Each picture unraveled an imaginative storyline 8 leading to the event displayed by the artist on the page. Like a private Olivier Deprez’s detective, I visually scrutinized each print to discover more information Storytelling in that would spark another avenue of entertainment or enlightenment in Le Château de Kafka my imagination. By Jan Baetens Pictorial storytelling holds a special magic in everyone’s lives, regard- less of age, race, language or religion, confirmed throughout history from prehistoric cave paintings to digitized images on the internet. Not only do 16 stories entertain us but they may be the best means that enable us to rise Fritz Eichenberg’s above our individual differences, identify with others, and feel less alone— Saint Francis: whether crouching in a cave or sitting with our laptop in an internet Showing Humanity’s cafe. The invention that brought the power of storytelling to its greatest Duality potential was the printing press with its potential of circulating images in by Sarina vast quantities and making the print the ideal vehicle for the democratic Rodrigues Wyant dissemination of ideas, instruction, and entertainment. In this issue, I wanted to look at this marriage of prints and storytelling from the perspective of a few scholars who will examine the work of three printmakers both here in the United States and one from Europe. Norma S. Steinberg examines the etchings of William Gropper, who used his storytelling skills and caricatures to uncover social injustices in the United States. The Belgium, Jan Baetens, looks closely at a graphic novel by Olivier Deprez and how his woodcuts not only illustrate a book written by Kafka but, more importantly, visually shows us Kafka “writing” the work. And in the last essay, Sarina Rodrigues Wyant examines Fritz Eichenberg’s homage to Saint Francis and how elements in the stand alone print symbolize ideas and beg the viewer to construct an internal narrative. My enjoyment from storytelling in prints has never left my life and I hope that these scholars will fortify the element of storytelling in your t ongoing work as printmakers for the next generation. he j ournal David A. Beronä | 2006 1 Storytelling in Gropper’s Late Etchings ecause prints are reproducible, they have been used by art- ists through the centuries to tell stories of myths, history, or religion. Since the late Renaissance, and especially since the nineteenth century, artists have added political, satirical, or social messages in their prints. William Gropper (1897- 1977), an American artist active from the 1920s through the 1970s, depicted in prints, book illustrations, caricatures, and paintings, the whole gamut of social andB political concerns. Gropper was proud of his chosen subject matter—humanity and social justice—and this theme is particularly noticeable in his graphic output. From the earliest caricatures of laborers, capi- talists, and workers of all sorts, to the lithographic senators, judges, lawyers, and folk heroes, Gropper continually expanded his repertoire. During the aftermath of his personal brush with censorship, he changed the meaning of his figures. Portrayed initially as workers, the men and women became metaphors for informers, the cynical press, and the blacklist itself. In the 1960s, given an opportunity to create intaglios in collaboration with a master printer, Gropper’s storytelling became more challenging and fantastic. During the 1940s Gropper was censured by Congress as a dissident, blacklisted by Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1953, and 2006 | victimized by many former friends in the early 1960s as a “Fifth Amendment communist.” In the intensely anti-socialist climate ournal j he t 2 BY Norma S. SteinberG Figure. 1. William Gropper, The Speaker, 1938-41 from a series of ten lithographs “The Senate.” Lithograph, 113/4" x153/4". Printer:Gene Gropper. t he j ournal | 2006 3 of the Cold War, his figurative, narrative imagery was consid- country and introduced the set with an essay by Alan Fern, ered propaganda, even subversive, and certainly not fine art. then a well-known print dealer, and later director of the Na- In response to McCarthy’s blacklisting, Gropper published a tional Portrait Gallery. John Canaday, in the New York Times, portfolio of fifty lithographs,Capriccios 1. This group of prints, acknowledged Gropper’s social concerns in a positive review his indictment against what he called “American inquisi- under the banner “Gropper as an etcher is still in Good tions,” was inspired by Francisco Goya’s Los Caprichos, which Form; Old Social Criticisms Haven’t Lost Punch.”6 Gropper said “exposed the brutal Inquisitions of his time.”2 The motif of Congressional imagery, in particular, Gropper’s reputation began to rise in the sixties. The proved an enduring one that Gropper pursued in a variety American Contemporary Art (A.C.A.) Gallery, patron of of media. A. Conger Goodyear purchased Gropper’s oil Gropper’s first one-person show in 1936, held an exhibi- painting, The Senate (1935) and donated it to the Museum tion of his paintings and drawings in 1961. It was reviewed of Modern Art. When Lewis Mumford in the New Yorker positively by Time magazine. Ending the piece, the reviewer reviewed the painting as “the condensation of a hundred wrote, “[Gropper’s] work is in a durable tradition: A Grop- Congressional Records,” his comment reflected Gropper’s per senator does not date any more than a Daumier judge skepticism about government.7 or a Prussian officer by George Grosz. In Gropper the ‘old The Speaker, a lithograph printed in an edition of twelve guard’ seems amazingly young.”3 by Gropper’s son Gene8 in the late 1930s to early 1940s, is Soon after, Sylvan Cole of Associated American Artists another representation of this subject (Fig.1). Gropper gallery (AAA) invited Gropper to create a suite of etchings admired Daumier, and like many a Daumier caricature, under the gallery’s aegis. AAA, until recently a well-known Gropper’s round-bellied, loudly gesturing Speaker stands be- publisher primarily of lithographs, had published Gropper’s fore colleagues who benefit more from personal conversations, lithographs in the forties and early fifties, but his association napping, or reading the newspaper than from his rhetoric.9 with the gallery was negatively affected by the subpoena to All Gropper’s images of government officials – judges, lawyers, appear at the McCarthy hearings.4 and capitalists – symbolize contempt. The type has a large For this etching commission, Twelve Etchings (1965), drooping belly, a suit and tie, often a top hat or spectacles, Gropper collaborated with Emiliano Sorini, master intaglio always a scowl.