It starts with a stump of wood. The end product: a work of art.
Joslyn Art Museum’s “Wood” exhibition, featuring almost 80 wood prints, blocks and books, opened in Omaha Jan. 24, exposing a lovely, historical art form unfamiliar to most people.
The first in a series of three exhibitions which will include “Metal” in 2010 and “Stone” in 2011, “Wood” divides the art of woodblock into three categories, the “ABCs.” The first, “Aesthetics,” analyses the use of expression. “Book” concentrates on the use of woodblock in illustration, and “Color” looks at the use of color in woodblocks throughout time.
Penelope Smith, Josyln’s registrar and assistant curator of prints and drawings, said the goal of each of the three exhibitions in the series is to “focus on the aspects inherent to each medium.” Dividing the woodcuts into three categories allows the viewer to appreciate how each individual artist “reacted to the wood.”
Artists included in the exhibition consist mainly of Americans and Europeans, but also include several from Japan, Holland, England and Scandanavia. Notable American artists include Paul Landacre, Rockwell Kent, Fritz Eichenberg and Nebraska’s very own Karen Kunc.
On display at the Joslyn are two of Kunc’s color prints, “The Wanting Pool” and “Amassing Blue.” Kunc, a professor of art at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said she began making woodblock prints during her first teaching job, having already learned other kinds of printmaking in school. She said she instantly loved making woodblock prints because of her ability to produce “large prints and strong color.”
Kunc describes woodcut printmaking as an “evolutionary process.” She begins by carving away all the space that is supposed to appear white into a piece of wood. Kunc designs the layout of her composition “on paper first just to figure out the layout of the design, but [she doesn’t] make decisions about color” at that point. Later, she transfers her designs to woodblock. Then, ink is applied to the woodblock, and the block is used as a sort of stamp, transferring the design on wood to a piece of paper. This process may be repeated several times on the same print, carving away more wood from the woodblock during each stage, a technique known as “reduction.” The final product: a beautiful print.
Kunc said she hopes that Creighton students will take advantage of the opportunity to “see the exhibition and enjoy the historical perspective.” She explained that this type of printmaking was all they had available in the Middle Ages. Although modern day, commercial versions of printmaking include screen printing and lithography, woodblock printmaking is still an art many people find valuable.
“People seem to be seeking it out,” said Amy Rummel, director of communications at Joslyn, of the general public’s interest in the “Wood” exhibition. “Wood” offers an exciting variety of works ranging from Kent’s “powerful images of man standing up against the sea, sky and earth” to Eichenberg’s “Growing Corn,” a work “greatly influenced by contemporary photographers,” as Smith said. As Smith exclaimed, “every single one of these [works] is an incredible print!”