THE TAMARIND PAPERS Technical, Critical and Historical Studies on the Art of the Lithograph Volum e 6, Number I Winter 1982-83 Volum e 6, Number 1 Winter 1982-83 THE TAMARIND PAPERS Technical, Critical and Historical Studies on the Art of the Lithograph Editor: Clinton Adams Contributing Editor: John Sommers Editorial Board: Richard Field, Janet Flint , Robert Gardner, Jules Heller, Lynton R. Kistler, Peter Morse, and Gustave von Groschwitz CONTENTS COVER: Nathan Oliveira. Tamarind Site, 1983. The Personality of Lithography 4 10 x 630 mm. A Conversation with Nathan Oliveira Clinton Adams 4 Printed by Catherine Kirsch Kuhn. [T 83-62 1] Robert Blackburn: An Investment in an Idea Elizabeth Jones 10 Tamarind Site is the second annual Art That Is Really Not Art Gusta ve Harrow 15 presentation print published for the Tamarind Collector's Club. Albert Winslow Barker Graphite Crayons and Sea Salt Ronald Netsky 18 Tamarind Tests of the Barker Crayons 22 Lo-Shu Washes Rebecca Bloxham 22 A Microscopic Study of Ink and Water Emulsions Todd Frye 25 Tamarind: A Photographic Yearbook 27 Directory of Suppliers 28 ·. The Tamarind Papers are published twice each year by Tamarind Institute. 108 Cornell Avenue . SE. Albuquerque, New Mex ico 87 13 1. Telephone 505: 277-390 1. Manu scripts and photographs on subjects related to the art of the lithograph are we lcomed. however A Cumulative Index to Volumes I through 5 has no advance commitment can be given with respect to publication of unsolicited material. Such been published and distributed to current sub­ material will be re turned onl y if accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed enve lope. Tamarind scribers with thi s issue ofTTP. Others may obtain Institute is not responsible for the loss of or injury to manuscripts or photographs. The views this index upon request: $2.00 (postpaid). expressed in articles are those of the individual writers and not necessarily those of Tamarind In stitute or the Uni versit y of New Mexico. PHOTO CREDITS: Reference to TBL in articles and footnotes are to The Tamarind Book of Litlzographr: Art and Louis Dienes. Page 6. Techniques by Garo Antreasian and Clinton Adams (New York: Abrams. 197 1). Todd Frye. Pages 25 , 26. SINGLE COPY PRICE: $4.00. SUBSCRIPTIONS: two years (four issues). $ 15.00. Barbara Puorro Galasso. Pages 18-2 1. Robert Reck. Cover, page 4. © Th e UniversitY of Nell' Mexico. / 982. All rights reserved. Susan von Glahn. Page 27. Printed in the United States of America by the Un ive rsit y of New Mexico Printing Pl ant. Museum of Modern Art, New York. Pages 12 , 13. ISSN : 0276-3397. THE PERSONALITY OF LITHOGRAPHY A Conversation with Nathan Oliveira The distinguished Ame ri can pai nter and printmaker Nathan Oliveira made hi s third working visit to Tamarind in the summer of 1982. During this stay he completed hi s color lithograph Tamarind Site !cover], the second in a series of lithograph to be published an­ nually for members of the Tamarind Collec­ tor's Club. Oliveira later di scussed hi s work in lithography in a conversation with Clinton Adams. Adams begins the conversati on: Among the artists who were working in th e Bay Area in the late 1940s- Park, Bischoff, Dieben­ korn, and oth ers-you are the only one who has made lithographs over a period of years. How do you account for your interest in lithography? Why is it that other artists who might ha ve found it a creative medium did not in fact do so? When l made my first lithograph in 1948 , my he­ roes as a student were the arti sts of Europe. Throughout hi story there had been a tradition of graphics parallel to painting and sculpture. It goe all the way back to Rembrandt, Durer, Goya, Lau­ trec, and the German Expressionists-the ones l was most fond of. l patterned my own efforts, my own concerns, after those artists. But while the European artists made prints coll aborati vely, 1 had to learn how to make my own- for as you know there were then only one or two printers in the country. Even if there had been more printers, l was a stud ent then. I couldn 't have afforded to have my work printed. I also felt the influence of twentieth century art­ athan Oliviera at Tamarind Institute, 1975 . ists, arti sts who were still alive: Picasso, Matisse, Giacometti , and Max Beckmann , the German Expressionist with whom l worked one summer, just before he died. You studied with Beckmann ? Yes, he was a visiting artist at Mills College in the summer of 1950. My first class in lithography wa at California Arts and Crafts with a craft sman Ray­ mond Bertrand, who was an oldtime lithographer­ quite a guy, a wonderful man. The second expe­ ri ence in lithography at Arts and Crafts was with 4 Leon Goldin. Around that time Ri chard Dieben­ korn , Frank Lobdell . and others had made litho­ graphs ... Th ey made some black-and-white lithographs in / 948, apparently printed by offset by a commercial printer in San Francisco. athan Oliveira. The Elder. 1957. 644 x 474 mm. Ri ght. But the attitude that was prevalent at that Pri nted by the art ist. time-not o nl y with those people but among the Abstract Expressioni st arti ts in New York- was th at printmaking had to do with craft and technique; and this was part of the ethic th at the Abstract Expre ioni ts were destroying. So that in some ways they looked on printmaking with contempt; they couldn 't really accept the concern fo r craft and felt that it was better to ignore it th an to become in volved in it. I think that wa basically the attitude. A little later on, I met Milton Resni ck, th e New York painter who was then a visiting arti st at the Uni versity of California in Berkeley. We became friends , and in the course of our fr iendshi p-over a glass of wi ne or beer on a number of evening - he became reall y concerned that I was so in volved with printmaking. He wanted to know why I made prints, and 1 gave hi m the same answer I j ust gave you. Resni ck really looked on printmaking a a hobby; I think that wa the general attitude. But that attitude didn ' t carry any weight with me, because when !looked at the great Max Beck­ mann woodcuts and the Picasso lithographs, I found them to be really incredible statements . At that time, I believe, many people didn' t know how to look at a print. They didn ' t know how it was dif­ ferent from looking at a painting; they somehow looked on the print simply as a reproductive pro­ Yes, many time that wa actuall y the case, some­ ces . times from a lack of technical knowledge. There Th e images in your paintings and prints of that were times when I wanted to print an edition of a period were closely related one to the oth er. Did particular state in those earl y days, but still couldn 't you find that there was an interchange of creative print more than one. development between them? You \Veren' r discouraged by that ? Th e rnediurn ~ vas Oh ye . I have to qualify my work as a printer giving you what you wanted f rom it.? then. I wa not interested in making editi ons. For Ri ght . You see at that time, what we were trying me , the print had a particular identity. I thought of to do-my coll eagues, my students, and 1- was to it--of lithography, which was my major effort­ alter lithography to relate to the general attitude of as a means to make a series of progressive states Abstract Expressionism, this in spite of the opin­ related to a fundamental idea. I would make a first ions of the Abstract Expressionist artists. That made proof, then, after looking at it, observing it , and it necessary to break down a number of the barriers reflecting on the concept, l would go back, coun­ that somehow controlled printmaking. This was teretch, alter the concept, and proof again, so as certainl y going on in painting as well; painters were to extend the concept. My prints paralleled my using lacquer and enamels. But as we all know, painting, the images certainly carried over. once you start to foo l around wi th material on a In recent years, artists who begin to make prints­ lithograph stone- whi ch is a very precise graphic particularly painters who begin to make prints­ art form-you can run into trouble. But this was usually tend to think of them as multiples; th ey are of no concern to us, because what we were trying concern ed with publication of editions. What you to do wa to develop a language within lithography are saying is that you were very much less inter­ whi ch would fo ster our ideas. ested in that aspect ofprintmakin g. Would you have 1 know th at you once printed for de Kooning. Did gone on making lithographs even if you could have you often make an effort to get oth er painters in­ printed only one impression from each stone? terested in lithography? 5 No, that was an isolated event. While I was a playing a role that I had never played before. I student there was a core of people such as myself showed de Kooning what tu sche was and in structed who were concerned wi th the print, but after I got him as to how the process worked .