Harold Wescott

"Flood Waters, " Landscape Wood Engraving by Harold Wescott

1937

The print 'Jones Island' is something of a self portrait. In the image, an artist stands before and easel, depicting the docks and buildings on the coast. The title indicates that this is Jones Island in Milwaukee, the peninsula along Lake Michigan that today is home to largely industrial buildings. The buildings and figures in the print suggest that this might be a view of the last of the Kashubian or German immigrant settlements on the peninsula before they were evicted in the 1940s to make way for the development of the harbor. The artist in the image thus acts as a documentarian of these peoples. The careful line-work of the woodblock engraving adds a sense of expressionism to the scene, leaving the figures and buildings looking distraught and dirty, though the image nonetheless falls into the Social Realist category that dominated American artists during the Great Depression. This print was published in 1936 as part of the Wisconsin Artists' Calendar for the year 1937, which included 52 original, hand-made prints – one for each week of the year. 6 x 5 inches, image 10 x 7.13 inches, sheet 13.43 x 12.43 inches, frame Signed "GS" in the print block,upper left Entitled "Jones Island" lower left (covered by matting) Inscribed "Wood Engraving" lower center (covered by matting) Artist name "Gerrit V. Sinclair" lower right (covered by matting) Framed to conservation standards using 100 percent rag matting and museum glass, all housed in a silver gilded moulding. Gerrit Sinclair studied at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1910 - 1915, under Vanderpoel, Norton, and Walcott. In World War I, he served in the Army Ambulance Corps and later recorded his experiences in a series of oil paintings. He taught in Minneapolis before arriving in Milwaukee in 1920 to become a member of the original faculty of the Layton School of Art. He was also a member of the Wisconsin Painters & Sculptors. Sinclair's paintings and drawings were executed in a lyrical, representational style, usually expressing a mood rather than a narrative. His paintings reveal a great sensitivity for color and atmosphere. His subject matter focused on cityscapes, industrial valleys, and working-class neighborhoods, captured from eye-level. A decade before the popularity of Regionalism, Sinclair's strong interest in the community was reflected not only in his paintings, but also in his encouragement to students to return to their communities as artists and teachers. Joseph Friebert...

"Road to Cripple Creek, Colo." is an original woodcut print by Gerhardt H. Bakker. Lines full of expression and shape make up every bit of this print, fr...

'Field' is an original linocut by Wisconsin-based artist Schomer Lichtner. The composition presents fields of flowers, trees and grasses below a cloudy sky, but rendered with Lichtner's quintessential abstract sensibilities. This print is one from a series that each depict abstracted subjects in black silhouette, taking pleasure in the materiality of the linocut technique. The free forms of the plants resemble the lyrical mid-century works of the French artist Henri Matisse, which combined with these material concerns demonstrate Lichter's modern sensibilities. The prints from this series are unusual because of how below the image, Lichtner also includes his Chinese seal and a linocut remarque of a cow, each of which act as an additional signature of the artist on the artwork. Linocut in black and red on Permalife white wove paper 4.5 x 6 inches, image 11.5 x 8.75 inches, sheet 16.5 x 13.63 inches, frame Signed in pencil, below image, lower right. Edition 1/100 in pencil, below image, lower left. Chinese signature stamp in red, below image, lower right. Remaque of a cow in red, below image, lower right. Permalife watermark to paper. Framed to conservation standards in a shadow-box style mounting, using 100 percent rag matting, museum glass, and housed in a silver-finish wood moulding. Overall excellent condition with no creases or discoloration. Milwaukee artist Schomer Lichtner was well known for his whimsical cows and ballerinas and abstract imagery. He and his late wife Ruth Grotenrath, both well-known Wisconsin artists, began their prolific careers as muralists for WPA projects, primarily post offices. Lichtner also painted murals for industry and private clients. Schomer was a printmaker and produced block prints, lithographs, and serigraph prints. His casein (paint made from dairy products) and acrylic paintings are of the rural Wisconsin landscape and farm animals. He became interested in cows when he and Ruth spent summers near Holy Hill in Washington County. According to David Gordon, director of the Milwaukee Art Museum, Schomer Lichtner had a tremendous joie de vivre and expressed it in his art. Schomer Lichtner was nationally known for his whimsical paintings and sculptures of black- and white-patterned Holstein cows...

"Squall is an original wood engraving by Lowell Merritt Lee. It features a rendition of a squall, a sudden violent gust of wind that often brings in rain, snow, or sleet. Image: 6.1...

Composition is an Original Woodcut realized by Madeleine Flaschner (1933-....). The artwork is an experience greatly enhanced by the artist. Mono...

Modern Landscape is an original xylograph realized during the half of the 20th Century by an anonymous artist. The artwork represents a view of a village with several buildings and ...

Genre: Modern Subject: Landscape Medium: Print, Woodcut Surface: Paper Dimensions w/Frame: 31" x 15 1/2" Roger was born in the Addison Gilbert Hospital in Gloucester, MA, the son of Capt. Roger Martin and Ellie Emilia Oker, in 1925. His father was born in Rockport, of Portuguese heritage, and his mother was born in Finland. He graduated from Rockport Highschool in 1942. While in high school Roger prepared lobsters for tourists at the Roy Moore Lobster Company on Bearskin Neck and sang and played harmonica with Tony Torissi’s hillbilly band. Roger enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard in 1942 and mustered out in 1946, ending his military career as a member of the USCG canine corps only two weeks from going to the Pacific with a Marine detachment. After having lived on both coasts (Manhattan and Los Angeles) he returned to his home town from the West Coast, vowing to never leave again, and he hasn’t. When he returned to Cape Ann he entered the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston where he majored in book design and illustration, graduating with honors. He illustrated a number of textbooks for D.C. Heath, Beacon Press, and other Boston publishers, as well as provided illustrations for the New York Sunday Times, the New Yorker magazine, the Atlantic Monthly magazine, and a book for the United Church of Christ. Roger also designed, carved and gold-leafed pipe shades for a number of C. B. Fisk pipe organs, builders of tracker action pipe organs, including those at Harvard and Stanford Universities. He began his teaching career in Rockport, teaching elementary grade art, following that with four years teaching at the New England School of Art in Boston. Roger became a founding faculty member of the Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, MA, where he taught for twenty years, retiring to make paintings. He was also elected Rockport’s Poet Laureate in the 1990s and in addition wrote and published three books about Rockport. Roger Martin has exhibited his work throughout New England and beyond. He has shown his work in Portland, ME; New York City; Andover’s Addison Gallery; the Boston ICA; galleries on Newbury Street in Boston; the Rockport Art Association; the Cape Ann Historical Museum (where he is part of the permanent collection); and many others. His work is represented in many private collections, including those of John...

This drawing is part of our exhibition Charles Goeller: A Wistful Loneliness. Crayon on paper, 10 ½ x 9 inches (image), 14 x 11 inches (sheet), Signed...