American, 20th century, female.
Born 1963, in Inglewood (California).
Book artist, printmaker (letterpress). Papermaking.
Julie Chen received her BFA in printmaking from the University of California, Berkeley in 1989. While a student she founded Flying Fish Press. She began graduate studies in book arts at Mills College in Oakland in ...
(b Philadelphia, Dec 7, 1892; d New York, June 24, 1964).
American painter and printmaker (see fig.). He was born into an artistic family: his parents studied with Thomas Anshutz at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and his father was the art editor at the Philadelphia Press, a newspaper that included among its employees the Robert Henri circle of artist–reporters. Davis studied art under Henri in New York between 1909 and 1912. His earliest works, which chronicle urban life in the streets, saloons and theatres, are painted with the dark palette and thickly applied brushstrokes typical of the Ashcan school style inspired by Henri. Davis also published illustrations in the left-wing magazine The Masses between 1913 and 1916, and in The Liberator, which succeeded it in the 1920s.
With his contribution of five watercolours Davis was one of the youngest exhibitors at the Armory Show, the international exhibition of modern art that opened in New York in 1913...
American, 20th–21st century, female.
Born 1950, in Prague.
Active in Rosendale (New York).
Printmaker, photographer, draughtsman, paper maker. Installation art, artists’ books.
Women’s Studio Workshop.
Tatana Kellner was born in Prague and grew up in communist Czechoslovakia as the daughter of Holocaust survivors. After the Soviet invasion in ...
American, 20th century, female.
Born 15 April 1947, in Lexington (Kentucky).
Artist, printmaker, writer, teacher, photographer. Artists’ books
Susan King was born and grew up in Kentucky, where she graduated from the University of Kentucky with a BA in art. After college she worked for Byron Temple Pottery in Lambertville, New Jersey. From there she moved to Las Cruces, New Mexico and obtained an MA at New Mexico State University. After hearing Judy Chicago speak at her school, she travelled to Los Angeles to be part of the experimental Feminist Studio Workshop at the Woman’s Building, a public centre for women’s culture. King stayed in Los Angeles and began making artists’ books at the Women’s Graphic Center. She founded Paradise Press and opened her own studio in West L.A. King returned to Kentucky in ...
American, 20th–21st century, female.
Born 1955, in Germany.
Active in England and Brittany, France.
Installation artist, photographer, printmaker, writer, editor, educator. Artists’ books, artists’ multiples.
Sharon Kivland studied at Liverpool School of Art and at the London College of Printing. Later she took a masters degree at Goldsmith’s College, London (...
(b Aberdeen, WA, Jan 24, 1915; d Princetown, MA, July 16, 1991).
American painter, printmaker, and editor. A major figure of the Abstract Expressionist generation (see Abstract Expressionism), in his mature work he encompassed both the expressive brushwork of action painting and the breadth of scale and saturated hues of colour field painting, often with a marked emphasis on European traditions of abstraction.
Motherwell was sent to school in the dry climate of central California to combat severe asthmatic attacks and developed a love for the broad spaces and bright colours that later emerged as essential characteristics of his abstract paintings. His later concern with themes of mortality can likewise be traced to his frail health as a child. From 1932 he studied literature, psychology, and philosophy at Stanford University, CA, and encountered in the poetry of the French Symbolists an expression of moods that dispensed with traditional narrative. He paid tribute to these writers in later paintings such as ...
(b Norman, OK, Sept 28, 1952).
American painter, draughtsman, and printmaker. He studied under John Baldessari and others at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, CA (1973–5). While working in the art department of a publisher of romance and pornographic magazines, he gathered together photographs from the company’s archives, later using them as source material for his paintings. His soft-core pornographic depictions of women drew frequent criticism from reviewers and critics. After producing performances and installations in the late 1970s, he began in 1979 to make paintings in which he overlaid images in different styles based on found sources, as in The Flesh Made Word (1979; Rotterdam, Mus. Boymans–van Beuningen). Although he acknowledged the example of the Transparencies series painted in the late 1920s and 1930s by Picabia, a more immediate point of comparison for works such as Good Bye D. (1982; Richmond, VA Mus. F.A.)—with their references to popular sources and kitsch and jarring juxtapositions of styles—was in work produced in the 1960s by artists associated with Pop art, notably James Rosenquist and Sigmar Polke. During the 1980s and early 1990s he was one of the most influential young painters working in a representational idiom. Splicing recognizable elements from canonical artworks together with laid-on transitional passages made from a range of straight photographs, grisaille adaptations, vintage magazine ads, and drawn-on elements, Salle created visual puzzles and unusual juxtapositions with emotional impact, as in the diptych ...
American family of Philadelphia printmakers, printers, painters, and educators. John Sartain and his children, Emily and William, played an important role in the art world of Philadelphia for over a century. Their influence on American art lies primarily in the impact of their work example and leadership on others, and somewhat less from the value placed on their own artistic output. The patriarch, John Sartain (b London, 24 Oct 1808; d Philadelphia, PA, 25 Oct 1897), arrived in Philadelphia at the age of 22. By 1850 he was the city’s premier engraver of illustrations for a wide range of publications. His brilliant mezzotint engravings, often reproducing the work of others, brought graphic art into the homes of all classes. Reproductive engravings, either framed or in books, were widely popular before the advent of photography. Many writers promulgated the display of such prints as a means to refine and enlighten society. Sartain’s most successful endeavours in this field were his large and elaborate framing prints, commissioned by painters, collectors, and publishers to disseminate important works. The finest of these is ...
American, 20th–21st century, male.
Born 2 May 1938, in Tipton (Indiana).
Active in Rochester (New York).
Bookmaker, photographer, printmaker, teacher. Artists’ books.
Keith Smith received his BAE degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1967, studying printmaking and photography, and an MS in photography from the Illinois Institute of Technology in ...
American, 20th–21st century, female.
Born 1954, in Concord (New Hampshire).
Active in Ireland from 1997.
Artist, writer, photographer, editor, printmaker, bookmaker. Artists’ books.
Erica Van Horn studied fine arts at California State University, Hayward under the tutelage of printmaker Misch Kohn. She received an MFA in printmaking from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in ...
