THE PRINT, DRAWING & PHOTOGRAPH SOCIETY OF THE BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART NewsletterI I VOLUME 35 NUMBER 1 SPRING 2016 GIFTS FOR A NEW CENTURY The New Arrivals exhibition celebrates the success of the BMA’s Campaign for Art by showcasing some of the more than 3,500 gifts, promised gifts, bequests, and purchases of art added to the Museum’s collection. 3 ALSO INSIDE D O PRESIDENT’S LETTER 2 O H O R WHEN PHOTOGRAPHS TACKLE ART HISTORY 6 T I M : O THE DIRECTOR’S COLLECTION 10 T O H P . EVAN LINDQUIST 14 N A M D TAMING THE GARRETT COLLECTION 20 L E F E N BROOMBERG & CHANARIN: OPTICS & CONFLICT 24 I L A © GEORGE ALOYSIUS LUCAS, A BALTIMOREAN IN PARIS 28 Aline Feldman (American, born 1928) Night Grid, 2009 Color white line woodcut Sheet: 1011 x 659 mm. (39 13/16 x 25 15/16 in.) Gift of the Artist BMA 2011.77 T S I U Q D N I L N A EVAN V E LINDQUIST AN ENGRAVER’S ENGRAVER BY SCOTT PONEMONE few years back. Then after I friended him on Facebook earlier this year, I saw his post of an image of the Hayter portrait. That's when I first contacted him directly. …” Yes, what attracted Shafer to Lindquist was his engraved portrait of Hayter, the subject of her planned 2018 BMA exhibition and catalogue—a quest that started to take shape after the BMA acquired an Atelier 17 print in 2007. His 2015 14 engraving of Hayter is part on his continuing series of engravings of engravers that began in 2006 and now numbers, by my count, 17 images. 5 1 0 2 , T S I Thanks to Shafer’s online monitoring of Lindquist’s U Q D N I L series of portraits, the Museum purchased his N O R A SW Hayter Engraves War last year. Asked why she H S : O T would want to include a portrait of Hayter in the O H P BMA collection, Shafer said, “I am pleased to be able Evan Lindquist to show the extension of Hayter's legacy all the way up to the present day.” INTRODUCTION As a thank-you for the BMA purchase, Lindquist While scanning the horizon for all things Hayter— made a gift of his 2009 engraving Gabor Peterdi that’s printmaker and Atelier 17 founder Stanley Engraves a Still Life. His generosity inspired me William Hayter (1901-1988)—Ann Shafer’s radar to contact him and seek out an email interview, to locked on Evan Lindquist. What attracted Shafer, which he quickly agreed. BMA Associate Curator of Prints, Drawings & Photographs, was not so much Lindquist’s 40-year tenure as an art, printmaking, and drawing professor INTERVIEW at Arkansas State University nor his appointment as Evan Lindquist certainly didn’t retire from printmaking Arkansas’s first Artist Laureate (2013-17). when he retired from ASU in 2003. His series of “I can’t recall the context in which I first saw his engraver portraits is a testament to that. Over his work,” Shafer said via email, “but I remember posting career he has had more than 60 solo exhibitions and his engraving Knight, Bird & Burin to my Tumblr a has received more than 80 awards in about 300 T competitive exhibitions. His prints can be found What made you even interested in printmaking? S I in over 70 public institutions. Who introduced you to engraving? U Q D N In my November 2015 email interview, I worked During my earliest years my father would bring I chronologically from his early influences to his home drawing materials, scraps, from his lumber L N A philosophy about engraving, to his schooling, yard, for example, old wallpaper sample books and V and to his current series of engraved portraits. lumber crayons. I made prints with dozens of castoff E rubber stamps and a stamp pad. When I reached the How important was your father's interest in fourth grade in Emporia, Kansas, our art teacher calligraphy to your attachment to engraving? introduced us to linoleum block prints, and I was in He had wanted to be an artist, but the Great love with printmaking. In college [Emporia State Depression and World War II restrained his passion. University, Emporia, KS], Norman R. Eppink and … His penmanship often consisted of calligraphic J. Warren Brinkman encouraged my interest in lines, flowing curves, and bold shades. Before printmaking and introduced me to engraving. I read I could read or write, I would lie on the floor and two books on the subject, S.W. Hayter's New Ways emulate those lines, but mine were just childish of Gravure, and Jules Heller's Printmaking Today. scrawls in crayon which I tried to perfect. Later I understand one of your teachers was the I moved on to making those lines with ink pens. engraver Mauricio Lasansky. Tell me about Years later, copperplate engraving was the answer learning from him. What technical lessons did to creating elegant lines. … he provide? What mental lessons—apropos to Calligraphy appears to be a dance of arm engraving—did he offer? movement and hand pressure, while engraving Sharon [Lindquist’s wife] and I moved to Iowa City in requires the burin-holding hand to remain all but July 1960. She had taken an art teaching position in motionless. What type of struggle was it for you the public schools. I bought a copper plate, studied to bring the elegance of calligraphy to the copper the Hayter and Heller books, and began cutting a 15 plate? What mental adaptation was required to surrealist image into the plate. After a month of go from one medium to the other? cutting, I walked into Lasansky's first day of class There are many expert engravers whose creative [at the University of Iowa] and showed him my work results in beautiful calligraphy. I am not one of plate. He ran his fingers over the cuts and studied them. Engraving is my way of creating a new “vista" them closely. He asked some questions, now —an environment that appears and surrounds me forgotten in the excitement of meeting the maestro. T as I create it. R He turned and called out: “Jack, Virginia!” Two A F teaching assistants appeared. He pointed to me and O In the act of engraving, my eyes are close to the M U E told them in his soft, heavily-accented voice: "Make S copperplate. My entire field of vision is a vista. I play U M this boy a printer." That was my personal invitation E within that environment. A struggle ensues between R O M into the Iowa Print Group, and I was officially a I what I want to do as an artist and what I can do T L A through burin-handling skill. If I were to rely on skill printmaking major. … B E H T alone, the vista would appear cold and dead or in Every student was different, and the Maestro dealt F O Y chaos. It is an important balance to maintain. I tried T with each of us through private critiques. He might E I C to present that feeling of adventure in my YouTube O suggest that one student should try something, but S H video Evan Lindquist Engraves Martin Schöngauer. P recommend completely different ideas to the next A R G [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRFq5Y74TwY] student. There were also a few full-class critiques O T O H The burin is a natural tool for making calligraphic for anyone who wanted to sit in. During my years at P & Iowa it was an open classroom for students of all G N lines, and I use it in a way that emphasizes its I W levels, and we learned from everyone. A natural characteristics. Thus, my images make use R D , T N of calligraphic qualities that would be impossible to The Maestro would choose prints to send to various I R P duplicate through any other medium or technique. national exhibitions, and an assistant would cut the E H T T mats and package everything for entering the In your rules (in the 2010 Charles Kaufman article S I U competitions. This routine provided a few lines for the Society of American Graphic Artists) you Q D on our individual résumés and helped establish say: "Only a few lines should call attention to N I L professional practices among the students. themselves and be recognizable as ‘calligraphic N lines.’ " Yet some of your images emphasize A Tell me about your set of rules for making V calligraphic lines—like the recent tree prints. E an engraving. Why is that? My "rules" are a combination of instinct and My personal definition of a calligraphic line is any experience—perhaps meaningful only to myself. line that stands out and shouts: "Look at me. I’m My goal is to keep from getting into a rut. I know beautiful!" But how many "beautiful" lines would what has worked for me in the past, and lots of it take to throw a composition into chaos? A few things didn't work. But rules should be broken. calligraphic lines might strengthen and support Break any rule and it may provide variety to the each other, but too many of these lines would fight work process and remind me that I should consider each other for your attention, becoming ridiculous alternatives to the rule. The most important rule is or chaotic.