FEATURED ARTISTS
Chuck Close
(American, born 1933)
Leslie, 1986
Color woodcut on paper
1998.9.2
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts Association Purchase
Moving away from his signature large-scale Photo-Realist paintings of friends and family of the 1970s, Chuck Close began making looser images in the 1980s. Still using photographs as a point of reference, Close began employing colorful marks that he calls "donuts and lozenges" into a grid pattern. Up close these marks are abstract, but as the viewer moves further away, they coalesce into a clear image.
Close has explored many printmaking processes and, to transform his painting of his first wife, Leslie, the artist turned to the traditional Japanese ukiyo-e technique of woodblock printing. This process closely mimics his approach to painting by using numerous colors built up in layers to complete the overall image. Here Close utilized 51 blocks of linden wood, carved and printed with 10 different hues that overlap and mix on the paper to create the wide variety of colors.
Iohn DeMotte
(American, born 1964)
Untitled, 1986
From the Alabama Print Portfolio
Chine collé on paper
Gift of the University of Montevallo
1986.75
With his camera, Alabama artist John DeMotte captures abstractions of alleys and buildings. These photographs become sources for his prints, translated into inked abstractions that retain little of the character of their original subjects. In Untitled, the result is an eerie work that recalls aerial maps of rivers and their tributaries. The chine collé method allowed DeMotte to adhere tissue thin pieces of paper to the larger, heavier printed piece, and the layers of ink on the two types of paper create a mottled effect that adds tonal depth to the image.
John Himmelfarb
(American, born 1946)
No Danger, No Delay, 1984
Screen print on paper
Gift of Andy Zaid
1988.2
Working in a Neo-Expressionist manner, Iohn Himmelfarb moves easily between abstraction and representation with gestural marks and a propensity for allegory. With bright, bold colors——red is a particular favorite—Himmelfarb depicts real world objects such as buildings and landscapes along with invented characters. These compositions feature open—ended narratives that explore both fear and humor.
Himmelfarb's creation of No Danger, No Delay marked the first time the artist worked with the process of screen-printing. Chicago's Goodman Theatre originally commissioned the print for a portfolio corresponding to their production of The Road, by Nigerian political dissident Wole Soyinka. Himmelfarb was happy with the process and the print, and later created a black and white version titled Coast to Coast.
Robert Martin
(American, born 1956)
Untitled #4,1983
Blueprint and watercolor on handmade paper
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts Association Purchase
1984.16
Like many artists working in the 1980s, Robert Martin takes an autobiographical approach while investigating themes of identity. Martin's work during this period stemmed from photographs he took of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Local dance and other native art forms influenced him greatly. He states that modes of "transportation and buildings with bright color looked like art...art combined with life." Untitled #4 merges historical references of a place with the artist's own experiences, allowing Martin to locate where he fits within culture.
Martin employs a complex process to create his dense, tactile constructions. In Untitled #4, the artist layers and collages torn pieces of handmade paper, with blueprint paper, creating the image on top of the variegated surface.
Olaf Metzel
(German, born 1952)
L'Arte Povera 2,1989
Etching on paper
Gift of Mark and Amy Iohnson
2003.152
Known primarily as a sculptor and installation artist, Olaf Metzel often addresses political and social issues in much of his work. For example, in this print, Metzel comments on avenues of communication, particularly
through print media with his abstracted forms and gestural marks overlaid onto Italian newspaper pages.
With the title L'Arte Povera 2, this etching references the Italian art movement Arte Povera (1967-1972). The term meant impoverished or poor man's art—although it did not necessarily indicate a poorness of materials.
In his Neo-Expressionist style Metzel rebels against the conceptual and minimalist tendencies of Arte Povera.
J. Richard Mills
(American, born 1946)
Vertigo Fantasy, 1981
Watercolor on paper
1982.1
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts Association
Purchase with Funds from the Elizabeth Metcalf Memorial
Alabama artist, Richard Mills uses watercolor to create Neo-Expressionist abstract imagery. He contrasts his vigorous painting with structured lines to bring cohesiveness to his composition. Mills tries "to find an aesthetic harmony in the use of hard and soft-edged forms in my work that is executed by invention. Occasionally, the invention leads me to include forms that are found in historical references and, at times, surreal humor."
John L. Moore
(American, born 1939)
Austin, 1993
Color lithograph on paper
Gift of Jane Farver
1995.3
Although created in the 1990s, Austin exemplifies not only John Moore's work throughout the 1980s, but is also characteristic of the Neo-Expressionist style from the 1970s and 1980s. A movement that reacted to
the sparseness of minimalism and conceptualism, Neo-Expressionism revived the gestural qualities of 1950s Abstract Expressionism in combination with personal, and often, narrative aspects.
The lithograph, Austin, 1993 encompasses these elements. The title refers to the place where Moore created the print, Austin, Texas, when the artist was a guest artist at the University of Texas. Additionally, Moore, an African American artist, uses a limited color palette and black oval forms in his work that often represent figures or mirrors to explore questions of existence and social concerns.
Jody Mussoff
(American, born 1952)
Sleeping Girl with Birds, 1984
Colored pencil on paper
Gift of the artist
2011.6
Jody Mussoff's images of women stem from her imagination; in fact they essentially function as portraits of her various alter egos. Mussoff's women appear to be lost in an ambiguous private world in situations that at first glace may seem humorous, yet a sense of tension or anxiety often seeps through.
Sleeping Girl with Birds, 1984 is an example of the disorientation that Mussoff cultivates throughout her body of work, often by creating odd interactions between humans and animals. In regard to this piece Mussoff states that, "What usually compels me to make my imagery is a nearly physical feeling of the thing actually happening. In this case I (the girl) felt those birds flying towards me——in a protective way."
Carter Osterbind III
(American, born 1943)
Paved, Run-Over Car, 1986
From the Alabama Print Portfolio
Soft-ground etching on paper
Gift of the University of Montevallo
1986.7.15
Paved, Run-Over Car is part of a series of works by painter and printmaker Carter Osterbind III that explore the landscape of roads in an expressive and almost abstract manner. However, Osterbind's interest is not in
depicting true landscape; instead, he uses the idea of the pavement as "a formal flattening device."
In this etching, Osterbind depicts scattered auto parts in the center of the composition. The background features a mountainous landscape, while the artist creates broad, curving tire tracks that sweep horizontally across the foreground. Playing with perspective and working in a Neo-Expressionist manner, the artist creates a scene that is simultaneously realistic and dreamlike.
Cole Rogers
(American, born 1959)
Untitled, 1986
From the Alabama Print Portfolio
Collograph on paper '
Gift of the University of Montevallo
1986.718
Cole Rogers created this print for the Alabama Print Portfolio while still an undergraduate student at the University of Alabama, Birmingham. Rogers says the opportunity became "an out growth of learning and experimenting with the etching process and the materials." In this print, he successfully tested masking tape and spray paint to determine if they would work as acid resists.
Since this early investigation, Rogers has continued with printmaking. He earned a Master Printer certificate from Tamarind Institute in Albuquerque, New Mexico and co-founded his own printmaking studio, Highpoint Center for Printmaking in Minneapolis, MN. Here he continues making his own works while also guiding contemporary artists such as Willie Cole and Julie Mehretu through the printmaking process.
Conrad Ross
(American, born 1931)
Cloud Tiers, 1986
From the Alabama Print Portfolio
Offset lithograph on paper
Gift of the University of Montevallo
1986.719
Conrad Ross, a former professor of art at Auburn University and the founder of Wycross Press, examines the interaction of humans with the natural environment through his use of landscape imagery.
In his prints, Ross plays with dichotomies: he combines clear narratives with expressionistic dreamlike abstractions, uses both printmaking and collage, and juxtaposes original drawn imagery with found materials. In Cloud Tiers, Ross creates five tiers that represent various cloud formations layered into abstract forms.
Carrie Mae Weems
(American, born 1953)
Not Manet's Type, 2001
Photo-lithograph on paper
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts Association Purchase
2001.8.2
Photographer Carrie Mae Weems uses herself as a model to explore issues relating to identity, race, and gender. Specifically in this series, she questions why black women are absent throughout much of art historical works. For example, in Not Manet’s Type, Weems utilizes both humor and vulnerability to show that she would not have been the right "type" of model for such well-known artists such as Edouard Manet (French, 1832~1883), Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973), or Marcel Duchamp (French, 1887-1968).
Although Weems created Not Manet's Type in 2001, it extends the artist’s examination into social issues that began in the 1980s. She states, "I emerged in that incredible moment in the 1980s when all kinds of social questions about subjectivity and objectivity, about who was making, who was looking were being asked."
William T. Wiley
(American, born 1937)
Eerie Grotto? Okini, 1982
Color block print on rag paper
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts Association Purchase
1999.6
William T. Wiley works in the style of West Coast or California Funk Art, which developed in the 1960s and 1970s and continued into the 1980s. Like other artists who worked in this style, Wiley often incorporated autobiographical elements in playful and odd narratives. The use of humor and absurdity allowed Wiley to comment on social and political issues directly without being confrontational.
Wiley based the print Erie Grotto? Okini upon his watercolor, Your Own Blush and Flood, 1982. For the print, Wiley collaborated with master Japanese printmaker Tadashi Toda in the creation of the 26 carved cherry blocks and 85 different colors needed. A hallmark of Wiley’s work is his word play and puns. This is especially apparent with the title of this print, which is both a phonetic play on the word arigato, meaning "thank you" in Japanese and the Americanized interpretation of the word Okini, which means "thank you" in the region of Kyoto, Japan where Wiley worked.
(American, born 1933)
Leslie, 1986
Color woodcut on paper
1998.9.2
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts Association Purchase
Moving away from his signature large-scale Photo-Realist paintings of friends and family of the 1970s, Chuck Close began making looser images in the 1980s. Still using photographs as a point of reference, Close began employing colorful marks that he calls "donuts and lozenges" into a grid pattern. Up close these marks are abstract, but as the viewer moves further away, they coalesce into a clear image.
Close has explored many printmaking processes and, to transform his painting of his first wife, Leslie, the artist turned to the traditional Japanese ukiyo-e technique of woodblock printing. This process closely mimics his approach to painting by using numerous colors built up in layers to complete the overall image. Here Close utilized 51 blocks of linden wood, carved and printed with 10 different hues that overlap and mix on the paper to create the wide variety of colors.
Iohn DeMotte
(American, born 1964)
Untitled, 1986
From the Alabama Print Portfolio
Chine collé on paper
Gift of the University of Montevallo
1986.75
With his camera, Alabama artist John DeMotte captures abstractions of alleys and buildings. These photographs become sources for his prints, translated into inked abstractions that retain little of the character of their original subjects. In Untitled, the result is an eerie work that recalls aerial maps of rivers and their tributaries. The chine collé method allowed DeMotte to adhere tissue thin pieces of paper to the larger, heavier printed piece, and the layers of ink on the two types of paper create a mottled effect that adds tonal depth to the image.
John Himmelfarb
(American, born 1946)
No Danger, No Delay, 1984
Screen print on paper
Gift of Andy Zaid
1988.2
Working in a Neo-Expressionist manner, Iohn Himmelfarb moves easily between abstraction and representation with gestural marks and a propensity for allegory. With bright, bold colors——red is a particular favorite—Himmelfarb depicts real world objects such as buildings and landscapes along with invented characters. These compositions feature open—ended narratives that explore both fear and humor.
Himmelfarb's creation of No Danger, No Delay marked the first time the artist worked with the process of screen-printing. Chicago's Goodman Theatre originally commissioned the print for a portfolio corresponding to their production of The Road, by Nigerian political dissident Wole Soyinka. Himmelfarb was happy with the process and the print, and later created a black and white version titled Coast to Coast.
Robert Martin
(American, born 1956)
Untitled #4,1983
Blueprint and watercolor on handmade paper
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts Association Purchase
1984.16
Like many artists working in the 1980s, Robert Martin takes an autobiographical approach while investigating themes of identity. Martin's work during this period stemmed from photographs he took of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Local dance and other native art forms influenced him greatly. He states that modes of "transportation and buildings with bright color looked like art...art combined with life." Untitled #4 merges historical references of a place with the artist's own experiences, allowing Martin to locate where he fits within culture.
Martin employs a complex process to create his dense, tactile constructions. In Untitled #4, the artist layers and collages torn pieces of handmade paper, with blueprint paper, creating the image on top of the variegated surface.
Olaf Metzel
(German, born 1952)
L'Arte Povera 2,1989
Etching on paper
Gift of Mark and Amy Iohnson
2003.152
Known primarily as a sculptor and installation artist, Olaf Metzel often addresses political and social issues in much of his work. For example, in this print, Metzel comments on avenues of communication, particularly
through print media with his abstracted forms and gestural marks overlaid onto Italian newspaper pages.
With the title L'Arte Povera 2, this etching references the Italian art movement Arte Povera (1967-1972). The term meant impoverished or poor man's art—although it did not necessarily indicate a poorness of materials.
In his Neo-Expressionist style Metzel rebels against the conceptual and minimalist tendencies of Arte Povera.
J. Richard Mills
(American, born 1946)
Vertigo Fantasy, 1981
Watercolor on paper
1982.1
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts Association
Purchase with Funds from the Elizabeth Metcalf Memorial
Alabama artist, Richard Mills uses watercolor to create Neo-Expressionist abstract imagery. He contrasts his vigorous painting with structured lines to bring cohesiveness to his composition. Mills tries "to find an aesthetic harmony in the use of hard and soft-edged forms in my work that is executed by invention. Occasionally, the invention leads me to include forms that are found in historical references and, at times, surreal humor."
John L. Moore
(American, born 1939)
Austin, 1993
Color lithograph on paper
Gift of Jane Farver
1995.3
Although created in the 1990s, Austin exemplifies not only John Moore's work throughout the 1980s, but is also characteristic of the Neo-Expressionist style from the 1970s and 1980s. A movement that reacted to
the sparseness of minimalism and conceptualism, Neo-Expressionism revived the gestural qualities of 1950s Abstract Expressionism in combination with personal, and often, narrative aspects.
The lithograph, Austin, 1993 encompasses these elements. The title refers to the place where Moore created the print, Austin, Texas, when the artist was a guest artist at the University of Texas. Additionally, Moore, an African American artist, uses a limited color palette and black oval forms in his work that often represent figures or mirrors to explore questions of existence and social concerns.
Jody Mussoff
(American, born 1952)
Sleeping Girl with Birds, 1984
Colored pencil on paper
Gift of the artist
2011.6
Jody Mussoff's images of women stem from her imagination; in fact they essentially function as portraits of her various alter egos. Mussoff's women appear to be lost in an ambiguous private world in situations that at first glace may seem humorous, yet a sense of tension or anxiety often seeps through.
Sleeping Girl with Birds, 1984 is an example of the disorientation that Mussoff cultivates throughout her body of work, often by creating odd interactions between humans and animals. In regard to this piece Mussoff states that, "What usually compels me to make my imagery is a nearly physical feeling of the thing actually happening. In this case I (the girl) felt those birds flying towards me——in a protective way."
Carter Osterbind III
(American, born 1943)
Paved, Run-Over Car, 1986
From the Alabama Print Portfolio
Soft-ground etching on paper
Gift of the University of Montevallo
1986.7.15
Paved, Run-Over Car is part of a series of works by painter and printmaker Carter Osterbind III that explore the landscape of roads in an expressive and almost abstract manner. However, Osterbind's interest is not in
depicting true landscape; instead, he uses the idea of the pavement as "a formal flattening device."
In this etching, Osterbind depicts scattered auto parts in the center of the composition. The background features a mountainous landscape, while the artist creates broad, curving tire tracks that sweep horizontally across the foreground. Playing with perspective and working in a Neo-Expressionist manner, the artist creates a scene that is simultaneously realistic and dreamlike.
Cole Rogers
(American, born 1959)
Untitled, 1986
From the Alabama Print Portfolio
Collograph on paper '
Gift of the University of Montevallo
1986.718
Cole Rogers created this print for the Alabama Print Portfolio while still an undergraduate student at the University of Alabama, Birmingham. Rogers says the opportunity became "an out growth of learning and experimenting with the etching process and the materials." In this print, he successfully tested masking tape and spray paint to determine if they would work as acid resists.
Since this early investigation, Rogers has continued with printmaking. He earned a Master Printer certificate from Tamarind Institute in Albuquerque, New Mexico and co-founded his own printmaking studio, Highpoint Center for Printmaking in Minneapolis, MN. Here he continues making his own works while also guiding contemporary artists such as Willie Cole and Julie Mehretu through the printmaking process.
Conrad Ross
(American, born 1931)
Cloud Tiers, 1986
From the Alabama Print Portfolio
Offset lithograph on paper
Gift of the University of Montevallo
1986.719
Conrad Ross, a former professor of art at Auburn University and the founder of Wycross Press, examines the interaction of humans with the natural environment through his use of landscape imagery.
In his prints, Ross plays with dichotomies: he combines clear narratives with expressionistic dreamlike abstractions, uses both printmaking and collage, and juxtaposes original drawn imagery with found materials. In Cloud Tiers, Ross creates five tiers that represent various cloud formations layered into abstract forms.
Carrie Mae Weems
(American, born 1953)
Not Manet's Type, 2001
Photo-lithograph on paper
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts Association Purchase
2001.8.2
Photographer Carrie Mae Weems uses herself as a model to explore issues relating to identity, race, and gender. Specifically in this series, she questions why black women are absent throughout much of art historical works. For example, in Not Manet’s Type, Weems utilizes both humor and vulnerability to show that she would not have been the right "type" of model for such well-known artists such as Edouard Manet (French, 1832~1883), Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973), or Marcel Duchamp (French, 1887-1968).
Although Weems created Not Manet's Type in 2001, it extends the artist’s examination into social issues that began in the 1980s. She states, "I emerged in that incredible moment in the 1980s when all kinds of social questions about subjectivity and objectivity, about who was making, who was looking were being asked."
William T. Wiley
(American, born 1937)
Eerie Grotto? Okini, 1982
Color block print on rag paper
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts Association Purchase
1999.6
William T. Wiley works in the style of West Coast or California Funk Art, which developed in the 1960s and 1970s and continued into the 1980s. Like other artists who worked in this style, Wiley often incorporated autobiographical elements in playful and odd narratives. The use of humor and absurdity allowed Wiley to comment on social and political issues directly without being confrontational.
Wiley based the print Erie Grotto? Okini upon his watercolor, Your Own Blush and Flood, 1982. For the print, Wiley collaborated with master Japanese printmaker Tadashi Toda in the creation of the 26 carved cherry blocks and 85 different colors needed. A hallmark of Wiley’s work is his word play and puns. This is especially apparent with the title of this print, which is both a phonetic play on the word arigato, meaning "thank you" in Japanese and the Americanized interpretation of the word Okini, which means "thank you" in the region of Kyoto, Japan where Wiley worked.
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