Woodcut Landscape Prints

This square woodcut print on paper evokes the peacefulness of looking across a stream towards a thicket of trees in a forest in shades of violet, from lilac to dark eggplant. The mon...

This square woodcut print on paper evokes the peacefulness of looking upwards through a forest canopy in a symmetrical pattern composed of the silhouettes of trees in shades of dark ...

"Leaf Ocean" is a dramatic cyanotype and woodcut monoprint with contrasting layers and objects abstracted from nature. Black, silver, and white leaves float on top of a watery background. In her creative process, Katherine scans organic material which she then refines into digital files. The images are then then cut out of wood using a laser cutter. Katherine prints the inked wood shapes in combination with ink washes, in different arrangements making each print unique. For more works by Katherine Warriner and new listings, follow our storefront at Colibri Gallery...

Signed and numbered from the edition of 88. This tranquil scene of the moon at night by the waters' edge shows Schwaberow's technicque at its best. The grain of each piece of wood plays into the image perfectly. Micah Schwaberow was born in Eugene, Oregon and currently resides In Santa Rosa, California. The rolling hillsides, cloudscapes and coastline of Sonoma County are a major motif in his woodcuts. Seascape with light reflecting on the water just after sunset. Micah learned the art of Japanese woodblock art...

Der Wald or The Forest consists of nine wood block prints in a single portfolio. In each of the nine images a single tree is printed cleanly in solid black on manila colored archival...

This woodcut print on paper is a peaceful view through a forest canopy. The symmetrical composition of trees is shades of dark blue and cobalt blue. The monotype brings to mind the t...

Hajime Namiki, 'Garyu no sakura (The Lying Dragon Cherry Tree, Gifu)', color woodcut, 2003, edition 200. Signed in pencil and with the artist’s red seal....

This is an exclusive handprinted limited edition cyanotype. Details: + Title: Diptych of Ancient Theaters + Year: 2023 + Edition Size: 50 + Stamped and Certificate of Authenticity provided + Measurements : Two panels of 70x100 cm (28x 40 in.), a total of 70x200cm (28x80 in.) + All cyanotype prints are made on high-quality Italian watercolor paper WHAT IS A CYANOTYPE? The cyanotype (a.k.a. sun-print) process is one of the oldest in the history of photography, dating back to the 1840's. Cyanotypes were then made famous by Anna Atkins...

This is an exclusive handprinted limited edition cyanotype. Stunning image of a breezy "Malibu Pine Sea View". Details: + Title: Malibu Pine Sea View + Year: 2022 + Edition Size: 50 + Stamped and Certificate of Authenticity provided + Measurements : 70x100 cm (28x 40 in.), a standard frame size + All cyanotype prints are made on high-quality Italian watercolor paper WHAT IS A CYANOTYPE? The cyanotype (a.k.a. sun-print) process is one of the oldest in the history of photography, dating back to the 1840's. Cyanotypes were then made famous by Anna Atkins, considered the first female photographer. Inspired by nature, we feel the need to look back at a craft that is handmade, analogue, and using an all-natural light source: the sun. Our cyanotypes are made by coating high-quality Italian watercolor paper with a light-sensitive emulsion. We then expose it in direct sunlight for several minutes using a photo negative to get the best image quality. Finally, the print is washed and fixed with water to stop the reaction and prevent fading. What you get is an amazing, royal blue image...

"Paricutin (Volcano in Michoacan, Mexico)" is a woodcut and monotype signed by Carol Summers. In the image, an abstracted volcano erupts in a joyous burst of purples and oranges. The playfulness of the image is enhanced by Summers' signature printmaking technique, which allows the ink from the woodblock to seep through the paper, blurring the edges of each form. Art: 8 x 11 in Frame: 17 x 19 in Carol Summers (1925-2016) has worked as an artist throughout the second half of the 20th century and into the first years of the next, outliving most of his mid-century modernist peers. Initially trained as a painter, Summers was drawn to color woodcuts around 1950 and it became his specialty thereafter. Over the years he has developed a process and style that is both innovative and readily recognizable. His art is known for it’s large scale, saturated fields of bold color, semi-abstract treatment of landscapes from around the world and a luminescent quality achieved through a printmaking process he invented. In a career that has extended over half a century, Summers has hand-pulled approximately 245 woodcuts in editions that have typically run from 25 to 100 in number. His talent was both inherited and learned. Born in 1925 in Kingston, a small town in upstate New York, Summers was raised in nearby Woodstock with his older sister, Mary. His parents were both artists who had met in art school in St. Louis. During the Great Depression, when Carol was growing up, his father supported the family as a medical illustrator until he could return to painting. His mother was a watercolorist and also quite knowledgeable about the different kinds of papers used for various kinds of painting. Many years later, Summers would paint or print on thinly textured paper originally collected by his mother. From 1948 to 1951, Carol Summers trained in the classical fine and studio arts at Bard College and at the Art Students League of New York. He studied painting with Steven Hirsh and printmaking with Louis Schanker. He admired the shapes and colors favored by early modernists Paul Klee (Sw: 1879-1940) and Matt Phillips (Am: b.1927- ). After graduating, Summers quit working as a part-time carpenter and cabinetmaker (which had supported his schooling and living expenses) to focus fulltime on art. That same year, an early abstract, Bridge No. 1 was selected for a Purchase Prize in a competition sponsored by the Brooklyn Museum. In 1952, his work (Cathedral, Construction and Icarus) was shown the first time at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in an exhibition of American woodcuts. In 1954, Summers received a grant from the Italian government to study for a year in Italy. Woodcuts completed soon after his arrival there were almost all editions of only 8 to 25 prints, small in size, architectural in content and black and white in color. The most well-known are Siennese Landscape and Little Landscape, which depicted the area near where he resided. Summers extended this trip three more years, a decision which would have significant impact on choices of subject matter and color in the coming decade. After returning from Europe, Summers’ images continued to feature historical landmarks and events from Italy as well as from France, Spain and Greece. However, as evidenced in Aetna’s Dream, Worldwind and Arch of Triumph, a new look prevailed. These woodcuts were larger in size and in color. Some incorporated metal leaf in the creation of a collage and Summers even experimented with silkscreening. Editions were now between 20 and 50 prints in number. Most importantly, Summers employed his rubbing technique for the first time in the creation of Fantastic Garden in late 1957. Dark Vision of Xerxes, a benchmark for Summers, was the first woodcut where Summers experimented using mineral spirits as part of his printmaking process. A Fulbright Grant as well as Fellowships from the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation and the Guggenheim Foundation followed soon thereafter, as did faculty positions at colleges and universities primarily in New York and Pennsylvania. During this period he married a dancer named Elaine Smithers with whom he had one son, Kyle. Around this same time, along with fellow artist Leonard Baskin, Summers pioneered what is now referred to as the “monumental” woodcut. This term was coined in the early 1960s to denote woodcuts that were dramatically bigger than those previously created in earlier years, ones that were limited in size mostly by the size of small hand-presses. While Baskin chose figurative subject matter, serious in nature and rendered with thick, striated lines, Summers rendered much less somber images preferring to emphasize shape and color; his subject matter approached abstraction but was always firmly rooted in the landscape. In addition to working in this new, larger scale, Summers simultaneously refined a printmaking process which would eventually be called the “Carol Summers Method” or the “ Carol Summers Technique”. Summers produces his woodcuts by hand, usually from one or more blocks of quarter-inch pine, using oil-based printing inks and porous mulberry papers. His woodcuts reveal a sensitivity to wood especially its absorptive qualities and the subtleties of the grain. In several of his woodcuts throughout his career he has used the undulating, grainy patterns of a large wood plank to portray a flowing river or tumbling waterfall. The best examples of this are Dream, done in 1965 and the later Flash Flood Escalante, in 2003. In the majority of his woodcuts, Summers makes the blocks slightly larger than the paper so the image and color will bleed off the edge. Before printing, he centers a dry sheet of paper over the top of the cut wood block or blocks, securing it with giant clips. Then he rolls the ink directly on the front of the sheet of paper and pressing down onto the dry wood block or reassembled group of blocks. Summers is technically very proficient; the inks are thoroughly saturated onto the surface of the paper but they do not run into each other. The precision of the color inking in Constantine’s Dream in 1969 and Rainbow Glacier in 1970 has been referred to in various studio handbooks. Summers refers to his own printing technique as “rubbing”. In traditional woodcut printing, including the Japanese method, the ink is applied directly onto the block. However, by following his own method, Summers has avoided the mirror-reversed image of a conventional print and it has given him the control over the precise amount of ink that he wants on the paper. After the ink is applied to the front of the paper, Summers sprays it with mineral spirits, which act as a thinning agent. The absorptive fibers of the paper draw the thinned ink away from the surface softening the shapes and diffusing and muting the colors. This produces a unique glow that is a hallmark of the Summers printmaking technique. Unlike the works of other color field artists or modernists of the time, this new technique made Summers’ extreme simplification and flat color areas anything but hard-edged or coldly impersonal. By the 1960s, Summers had developed a personal way of coloring and printing and was not afraid of hard work, doing the cutting, inking and pulling himself. In 1964, at the age of 38, Summers’ work was exhibited for a second time at the Museum of Modern Art. This time his work was featured in a one-man show and then as one of MoMA’s two-year traveling exhibitions which toured throughout the United States. In subsequent years, Summers’ works would be exhibited and acquired for the permanent collections of multiple museums throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. Summers’ familiarity with landscapes throughout the world is firsthand. As a navigator-bombardier in the Marines in World War II, he toured the South Pacific and Asia. Following college, travel in Europe and subsequent teaching positions, in 1972, after 47 years on the East Coast, Carol Summers moved permanently to Bonny Doon in the Santa Cruz Mountains in Northern California. There met his second wife, Joan Ward Toth, a textile artist who died in 1998; and it was here his second son, Ethan was born. During the years that followed this relocation, Summers’ choice of subject matter became more diverse although it retained the positive, mostly life-affirming quality that had existed from the beginning. Images now included moons, comets, both sunny and starry skies, hearts and flowers, all of which, in one way or another, remained tied to the landscape. In the 1980s, from his home and studio in the Santa Cruz mountains, Summers continued to work as an artist supplementing his income by conducting classes and workshops at universities in California and Oregon as well as throughout the Mid and Southwest. He also traveled extensively during this period hiking and camping, often for weeks at a time, throughout the western United States and Canada. Throughout the decade it was not unusual for Summers to backpack alone or with a fellow artist into mountains or back country for six weeks or more at a time. Not surprisingly, the artwork created during this period rarely departed from images of the land, sea and sky. Summers rendered these landscapes in a more representational style than before, however he always kept them somewhat abstract by mixing geometric shapes with organic shapes, irregular in outline. Some of his most critically acknowledged work was created during this period including First Rain, 1985 and The Rolling Sea, 1989. Summers received an honorary doctorate from his alma mater, Bard College in 1979 and was selected by the United States Information Agency to spend a year conducting painting and printmaking workshops at universities throughout India. Since that original sabbatical, he has returned every year, spending four to eight weeks traveling throughout that country. In the 1990s, interspersed with these journeys to India have been additional treks to the back roads and high country areas of Mexico, Central America, Nepal, China and Japan. Travel to these exotic and faraway places had a profound influence on Summers’ art. Subject matter became more worldly and non-western as with From Humla to Dolpo, 1991 or A Former Life of Budha, 1996, for example. Architectural images, such as The Pillars of Hercules, 1990 or The Raja’s Aviary, 1992 became more common. Still life images made a reappearance with Jungle Bouquet in 1997. This was also a period when Summers began using odd-sized paper to further the impact of an image. The 1996 Night, a view of the earth and horizon as it might be seen by an astronaut, is over six feet long and only slightly more than a foot-and-a-half high. From 1999, Revuelta A Vida (Spanish for “Return to Life”) is pie-shaped and covers nearly 18 cubic feet. It was also at this juncture that Summers began to experiment with a somewhat different palette although he retained his love of saturated colors. The 2003 Far Side of Time is a superb example of the new direction taken by this colorist. At the turn of the millennium in 1999, “Carol Summers Woodcuts...

This large, horizontal diptych woodcut print on paper evokes the peacefulness of ocean waves depicted in shades of cobalt blue with purple undertones and the artist's addition of wat...

Tide Race by Artist Rod Nelson is a limited edition print. The scene captures the violently beautiful way in which waves crash. Rod Nelson is a printmaker w...

Fictive Homelands is a suite of 7 woodcut prints with silverpoint drawing on mylar by artist Serena Perrone. Fictive Homelands is a series of works that use the theater proscenium ...

Titled lower left: "Neadson II"; signed and dated lower right: "John Thompson 2014". A fine impression in fine condition.

Titled lower left: "Neadson I"; signed and dated lower right: "John Thompson 2014". A fine impression in fine condition.

Red Sand by Rod Nelson [2022] Please note that insitu images are purely an indication of how a piece may look Red Sand is a beautifully crafted woodcut prin...

This is a unique woodcut print of a forest and stream in dark eggplant purple offset by a light blue and pale grayish lilac background. The monotype brings to mind the tradition of J...

Dungeness by Mychael Barratt [2022] limited_edition and hand signed by the artist Woodcut print Edition number of 50 Image size: H:64 cm x W:62 cm ...

This is a unique woodcut print of a waterfall in a forest in light mint blue against a dark cobalt background. The monotype brings to mind the tradition of Japanese printing...

Elia Shiwoohamba (* 1981 , Windhoek, Namibia ) Harvesting Time • African School • Linoleum cut • Sheet ca. 34.5 x 43 cm (Image is smaller) • Bottom left numbered 8/50 and titled • ...

This is a unique woodcut print of a waterfall in a forest in silver ink. The monotype brings to mind the tradition of Japanese printing while being d...

The Surgeon’s Photograph by Mychael Barratt [2022] limited_edition and hand signed by the artist Woodcut Print on Paper Edition number of 50 Image size: H:50 cm x W:49 cm Complete S...

Shore Break by Rod Nelson [2021] limited_edition and hand signed by the artist Woodcut Print on on Somerset Satin 300gsm acid free paper Edition number of ...

This is a one of a kind original Linoleum block print piece by San Diego artist, Duke Windsor. It is a framed landscape piece and its dimensions a...

Der Wald - or, the Forest - consists of nine wood block prints in a single portfolio. In each of the nine images a single tree is printed cleanly in solid black on manila colored ar...

This large, horizontal diptych of two woodcut prints on paper evokes the peacefulness of ocean waves depicted in shades of blue, bright royal blue offset by soft, pale blue tones. Th...

"Once Upon A Glacier" is a limited edition woodcut by Cathie Crawford. The woodblocks were cut and printed by the artist on Hosho Professional paper in...

About Vestiges of Edo in Tsukuda (Tsukuda ni Nokoru Edo no Omokage) Artist: URBANOWICZ Mateusz Woodcarver: SEKIOKA Senrei III Printer: ITO Tatsuya Year: 2020 Our first original landscape ukiyo-e depicting Tsukuda, a neighborhood next to Tsukishima station in the east of Tokyo. This artwork highlights the striking contrast between the modern architecture and historical elements, that co-exist in harmony in Tsukuda today. The Japanese title Tsukuda ni Nokoru Edo no Omokage translates to “the vestiges of Edo in Tsukuda” - the word omokage (vestige) refers to the river, an aspect of old Edo that has continued to exist to this day, despite the fact that other things may have evolved or disappeared with time. When we trace back the history of ukiyo-e, we can see that there have been many foreign ukiyo-e artists who created important shin-hanga works in the 20th century, such as Paul Jacoulet, Elizabeth Keith...

‘The Tree’ 2014 Image 88 x 58 cm woodcut (available from edition of 30. 20 prints) Artist’s statement My preferred method of making images is through relief printmaking. I like exploring this expressive language in a dialogue between positive and negative, representation and abstraction, control and accident. I use lino...

"Summer Soleil" is a woodcut print by Cathie Crawford, an abstracted view of a shimmering water surface. The artist carved the blocks and printed the e...

About Vestiges of Edo in Tsukuda (Tsukuda ni Nokoru Edo no Omokage) Artist: URBANOWICZ Mateusz Woodcarver: SEKIOKA Senrei III Printer: ITO Tatsuya Year: 2020 Our first original landscape ukiyo-e depicting Tsukuda, a neighborhood next to Tsukishima station in the east of Tokyo. This artwork highlights the striking contrast between the modern architecture and historical elements, that co-exist in harmony in Tsukuda today. The Japanese title Tsukuda ni Nokoru Edo no Omokage translates to “the vestiges of Edo in Tsukuda” - the word omokage (vestige) refers to the river, an aspect of old Edo that has continued to exist to this day, despite the fact that other things may have evolved or disappeared with time. When we trace back the history of ukiyo-e, we can see that there have been many foreign ukiyo-e artists who created important shin-hanga works in the 20th century, such as Paul Jacoulet, Elizabeth Keith...

About Vestiges of Edo at Bell Tower (Toki no Kane Edo no Omokage) Artist: URBANOWICZ Mateusz Woodcarver: SEKIOKA Senrei III Printer: ITO Tatsuya Year: 2021 A former castle town situ...

‘The Protest’ 2019 Image 5.25 x 7.5 cm wood engraving (available from edition of 40. 30 prints) Artist’s statement My preferred method of making images is through relief printmaking. I like exploring this expressive language in a dialogue between positive and negative, representation and abstraction, control and accident. I use lino...

"Spectrum" is an abstracted landscape color reduction woodcut printed on a handmade Japanese kozo paper, with a deckle on all four sides. The image e...

This is a color reduction woodcut printed on Natsume paper, a handmade Japanese kozo paper, with a deckle on all four sides. The artist made this pri...

About Vestiges of Edo at Bell Tower (Toki no Kane Edo no Omokage) Artist: URBANOWICZ Mateusz Woodcarver: SEKIOKA Senrei III Printer: ITO Tatsuya Year: 2021 A former castle town situ...

About Vestiges of Edo in Tsukuda (Tsukuda ni Nokoru Edo no Omokage) Artist: URBANOWICZ Mateusz Woodcarver: SEKIOKA Senrei III Printer: ITO Tatsuya Year: 2020 Our first original landscape ukiyo-e depicting Tsukuda, a neighborhood next to Tsukishima station in the east of Tokyo. This artwork highlights the striking contrast between the modern architecture and historical elements, that co-exist in harmony in Tsukuda today. The Japanese title Tsukuda ni Nokoru Edo no Omokage translates to “the vestiges of Edo in Tsukuda” - the word omokage (vestige) refers to the river, an aspect of old Edo that has continued to exist to this day, despite the fact that other things may have evolved or disappeared with time. When we trace back the history of ukiyo-e, we can see that there have been many foreign ukiyo-e artists who created important shin-hanga works in the 20th century, such as Paul Jacoulet, Elizabeth Keith...

Layering fabrics, dyes, pigments, crystals, and various other natural materials, Martha Tuttle is a master of juxtaposing textures to explore the relationship between humans and the physical world. Her unique artworks draw upon a variety of mediums to create harmonious compositions vibrating with her artistic energy. Tuttle’s new triptych of prints — "The Colors of a Cholla Cactus...

About Vestiges of Edo in Tsukuda (Tsukuda ni Nokoru Edo no Omokage) Artist: URBANOWICZ Mateusz Woodcarver: SEKIOKA Senrei III Printer: ITO Tatsuya Year: 2020 Our first original landscape ukiyo-e depicting Tsukuda, a neighborhood next to Tsukishima station in the east of Tokyo. This artwork highlights the striking contrast between the modern architecture and historical elements, that co-exist in harmony in Tsukuda today. The Japanese title Tsukuda ni Nokoru Edo no Omokage translates to “the vestiges of Edo in Tsukuda” - the word omokage (vestige) refers to the river, an aspect of old Edo that has continued to exist to this day, despite the fact that other things may have evolved or disappeared with time. When we trace back the history of ukiyo-e, we can see that there have been many foreign ukiyo-e artists who created important shin-hanga works in the 20th century, such as Paul Jacoulet, Elizabeth Keith...

"Thicket 6" is a dramatic relief monotype with layers of orange foliage and branches as well as yellow and blue foliage. This print on paper is mounted onto cradled wood panel with a protective cold wax coating on the surface. In her creative process, Katherine scans organic material which she then refines into digital files. The images are then then cut out of wood using a laser cutter. Katherine prints the inked wood shapes in combination with cyanotype photograms, in different arrangements making each print unique. For more works by Katherine Warriner and new listings, follow our storefront at Colibri Gallery. Katherine Warinner...

"Serendipity" is an abstracted landscape print by Cathie Crawford. It is a color reduction woodcut printed on a handmade Japanese kozo paper, with a de...

‘Corvids Watching’ 2020 Image 49.5 x 44.5 cm woodcut (available from edition of 40. 35 prints Artist’s statement My preferred method of making images is through relief printmaking. I like exploring this expressive language in a dialogue between positive and negative, representation and abstraction, control and accident. I use lino...

Wonderful tropical Woodcut print of Palm Tree on island. Signed "Wessels" with a KW chop in a box above and 2012 lower edge. Presented in speckled pain...

‘Black Birds Gathering’ 2018 Image 38 x 56 cm woodcut (available from edition of 40. 30 prints) Artist’s statement My preferred method of making images is through relief printmaking. I like exploring this expressive language in a dialogue between positive and negative, representation and abstraction, control and accident. I use lino...

"Thicket 4" is a dramatic relief monotype with layers of orange, green, and blue foliage and branches. The overlapping translucent layers create a multitude of addition colors, shapes, and a rich depth. This print on paper is mounted onto cradled wood panel with a protective cold wax coating on the surface. In her creative process, Katherine scans organic material which she then refines into digital files. The images are then then cut out of wood using a laser cutter. Katherine prints the inked wood shapes in combination with cyanotype photograms, in different arrangements making each print unique. For more works by Katherine Warriner and new listings, follow our storefront at Colibri Gallery. Katherine Warinner...

"Thicket 1" is a dramatic relief monotype with layers of yellow, gray, and blue branches with yellow foliage. The overlapping translucent layers create a multitude of addition colors, shapes, and a richness of depth. This print on paper is mounted onto cradled wood panel with a protective cold wax coating on the surface. In her creative process, Katherine scans organic material which she then refines into digital files. The images are then then cut out of wood using a laser cutter. Katherine prints the inked wood shapes in combination with cyanotype photograms, in different arrangements making each print unique. For more works by Katherine Warriner...

Blue space themed surrealist block print by Texas modernist artist Josefa Vaughan. The yellow toned abstract forms create a whimsical landscape. Signed "Fo...

Wild Roses, 2010 Lithograph/etching/woodcut 28 3/8 × 38 3/8 in 72.1 × 97.5 cm This print combines etching, lithography, and woodcut to create a great variet...

"Composition 792" is a fun and fresh woodcut and monotype print in a Springtime color scheme. Organic-inspired shapes float against a subtle blue and yellow background. In her creative process, Katherine scans organic material which she then refines into digital files. The images are then then cut out of wood using a laser cutter. Katherine prints the inked wood shapes in combination with ink washes, in different arrangements making each print unique. For more works by Katherine Warriner...

Robert Greenhalf Berwick’s Swans and Lapwings Limited Edition Print Woodcut on Paper Edition of 100 Paper Size: H 38.5cm x W 41 cm Image Size: H 27.5c...

Color woodcut, Edition 10. In Buck’s "Sea Mount", the artist portrays an erupting volcano and a lava flow that carries cars, garbage and debris into a tropical landscape and a bloom...

Signed and titled by the artist from the edition of 20. This woodcut is a bold graphic depiction of the Lockheed Constellation airplane, which was made in Southern California Romero...

Keiji Shinohara was born and raised in Osaka, Japan. After 10 years as an apprentice to the renowned Keiichiro Uesugi in Kyoto, he became a Master Printmaker and moved to the United ...

The present artwork is a vibrant and colorful example of the woodcut prints of Carol Summers. The image is dominated by the form of a red tropical flower, closely cropped around the petals like in the photographs of Imogen Cunningham and the paintings of Georgia O'Keeffe. The playfulness of the image is enhanced by Summers' signature printmaking technique, which allows the ink from the woodblock to seep through the paper, blurring the edges of each form. 9.63 x 11.63 inches, artwork 21 x 23 inches, frame Edition 16/50 in pencil, lower right Titled in pencil, lower right Signed in pencil, lower center Framed to conservation standards using archival materials including 100 percent rag matting, Museum Glass to inhibit fading, and housed in a modern profile gold gilded wood moulding. Carol Summers (1925-2016) has worked as an artist throughout the second half of the 20th century and into the first years of the next, outliving most of his mid-century modernist peers. Initially trained as a painter, Summers was drawn to color woodcuts around 1950 and it became his specialty thereafter. Over the years he has developed a process and style that is both innovative and readily recognizable. His art is known for it’s large scale, saturated fields of bold color, semi-abstract treatment of landscapes from around the world and a luminescent quality achieved through a printmaking process he invented. In a career that has extended over half a century, Summers has hand-pulled approximately 245 woodcuts in editions that have typically run from 25 to 100 in number. His talent was both inherited and learned. Born in 1925 in Kingston, a small town in upstate New York, Summers was raised in nearby Woodstock with his older sister, Mary. His parents were both artists who had met in art school in St. Louis. During the Great Depression, when Carol was growing up, his father supported the family as a medical illustrator until he could return to painting. His mother was a watercolorist and also quite knowledgeable about the different kinds of papers used for various kinds of painting. Many years later, Summers would paint or print on thinly textured paper originally collected by his mother. From 1948 to 1951, Carol Summers trained in the classical fine and studio arts at Bard College and at the Art Students League of New York. He studied painting with Steven Hirsh and printmaking with Louis Schanker. He admired the shapes and colors favored by early modernists Paul Klee (Sw: 1879-1940) and Matt Phillips (Am: b.1927- ). After graduating, Summers quit working as a part-time carpenter and cabinetmaker (which had supported his schooling and living expenses) to focus fulltime on art. That same year, an early abstract, Bridge No. 1 was selected for a Purchase Prize in a competition sponsored by the Brooklyn Museum. In 1952, his work (Cathedral, Construction and Icarus) was shown the first time at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in an exhibition of American woodcuts. In 1954, Summers received a grant from the Italian government to study for a year in Italy. Woodcuts completed soon after his arrival there were almost all editions of only 8 to 25 prints, small in size, architectural in content and black and white in color. The most well-known are Siennese Landscape and Little Landscape, which depicted the area near where he resided. Summers extended this trip three more years, a decision which would have significant impact on choices of subject matter and color in the coming decade. After returning from Europe, Summers’ images continued to feature historical landmarks and events from Italy as well as from France, Spain and Greece. However, as evidenced in Aetna’s Dream, Worldwind and Arch of Triumph, a new look prevailed. These woodcuts were larger in size and in color. Some incorporated metal leaf in the creation of a collage and Summers even experimented with silkscreening. Editions were now between 20 and 50 prints in number. Most importantly, Summers employed his rubbing technique for the first time in the creation of Fantastic Garden in late 1957. Dark Vision of Xerxes, a benchmark for Summers, was the first woodcut where Summers experimented using mineral spirits as part of his printmaking process. A Fulbright Grant as well as Fellowships from the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation and the Guggenheim Foundation followed soon thereafter, as did faculty positions at colleges and universities primarily in New York and Pennsylvania. During this period he married a dancer named Elaine Smithers with whom he had one son, Kyle. Around this same time, along with fellow artist Leonard Baskin, Summers pioneered what is now referred to as the “monumental” woodcut. This term was coined in the early 1960s to denote woodcuts that were dramatically bigger than those previously created in earlier years, ones that were limited in size mostly by the size of small hand-presses. While Baskin chose figurative subject matter, serious in nature and rendered with thick, striated lines, Summers rendered much less somber images preferring to emphasize shape and color; his subject matter approached abstraction but was always firmly rooted in the landscape. In addition to working in this new, larger scale, Summers simultaneously refined a printmaking process which would eventually be called the “Carol Summers Method” or the “ Carol Summers Technique”. Summers produces his woodcuts by hand, usually from one or more blocks of quarter-inch pine, using oil-based printing inks and porous mulberry papers. His woodcuts reveal a sensitivity to wood especially its absorptive qualities and the subtleties of the grain. In several of his woodcuts throughout his career he has used the undulating, grainy patterns of a large wood plank to portray a flowing river or tumbling waterfall. The best examples of this are Dream, done in 1965 and the later Flash Flood Escalante, in 2003. In the majority of his woodcuts, Summers makes the blocks slightly larger than the paper so the image and color will bleed off the edge. Before printing, he centers a dry sheet of paper over the top of the cut wood block or blocks, securing it with giant clips. Then he rolls the ink directly on the front of the sheet of paper and pressing down onto the dry wood block or reassembled group of blocks. Summers is technically very proficient; the inks are thoroughly saturated onto the surface of the paper but they do not run into each other. The precision of the color inking in Constantine’s Dream in 1969 and Rainbow Glacier in 1970 has been referred to in various studio handbooks. Summers refers to his own printing technique as “rubbing”. In traditional woodcut printing, including the Japanese method, the ink is applied directly onto the block. However, by following his own method, Summers has avoided the mirror-reversed image of a conventional print and it has given him the control over the precise amount of ink that he wants on the paper. After the ink is applied to the front of the paper, Summers sprays it with mineral spirits, which act as a thinning agent. The absorptive fibers of the paper draw the thinned ink away from the surface softening the shapes and diffusing and muting the colors. This produces a unique glow that is a hallmark of the Summers printmaking technique. Unlike the works of other color field artists or modernists of the time, this new technique made Summers’ extreme simplification and flat color areas anything but hard-edged or coldly impersonal. By the 1960s, Summers had developed a personal way of coloring and printing and was not afraid of hard work, doing the cutting, inking and pulling himself. In 1964, at the age of 38, Summers’ work was exhibited for a second time at the Museum of Modern Art. This time his work was featured in a one-man show and then as one of MoMA’s two-year traveling exhibitions which toured throughout the United States. In subsequent years, Summers’ works would be exhibited and acquired for the permanent collections of multiple museums throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. Summers’ familiarity with landscapes throughout the world is firsthand. As a navigator-bombardier in the Marines in World War II, he toured the South Pacific and Asia. Following college, travel in Europe and subsequent teaching positions, in 1972, after 47 years on the East Coast, Carol Summers moved permanently to Bonny Doon in the Santa Cruz Mountains in Northern California. There met his second wife, Joan Ward Toth, a textile artist who died in 1998; and it was here his second son, Ethan was born. During the years that followed this relocation, Summers’ choice of subject matter became more diverse although it retained the positive, mostly life-affirming quality that had existed from the beginning. Images now included moons, comets, both sunny and starry skies, hearts and flowers, all of which, in one way or another, remained tied to the landscape. In the 1980s, from his home and studio in the Santa Cruz mountains, Summers continued to work as an artist supplementing his income by conducting classes and workshops at universities in California and Oregon as well as throughout the Mid and Southwest. He also traveled extensively during this period hiking and camping, often for weeks at a time, throughout the western United States and Canada. Throughout the decade it was not unusual for Summers to backpack alone or with a fellow artist into mountains or back country for six weeks or more at a time. Not surprisingly, the artwork created during this period rarely departed from images of the land, sea and sky. Summers rendered these landscapes in a more representational style than before, however he always kept them somewhat abstract by mixing geometric shapes with organic shapes, irregular in outline. Some of his most critically acknowledged work was created during this period including First Rain, 1985 and The Rolling Sea, 1989. Summers received an honorary doctorate from his alma mater, Bard College in 1979 and was selected by the United States Information Agency to spend a year conducting painting and printmaking workshops at universities throughout India. Since that original sabbatical, he has returned every year, spending four to eight weeks traveling throughout that country. In the 1990s, interspersed with these journeys to India have been additional treks to the back roads and high country areas of Mexico, Central America, Nepal, China and Japan. Travel to these exotic and faraway places had a profound influence on Summers’ art. Subject matter became more worldly and non-western as with From Humla to Dolpo, 1991 or A Former Life of Budha, 1996, for example. Architectural images, such as The Pillars of Hercules, 1990 or The Raja’s Aviary, 1992 became more common. Still life images made a reappearance with Jungle Bouquet in 1997. This was also a period when Summers began using odd-sized paper to further the impact of an image. The 1996 Night, a view of the earth and horizon as it might be seen by an astronaut, is over six feet long and only slightly more than a foot-and-a-half high. From 1999, Revuelta A Vida (Spanish for “Return to Life”) is pie-shaped and covers nearly 18 cubic feet. It was also at this juncture that Summers began to experiment with a somewhat different palette although he retained his love of saturated colors. The 2003 Far Side of Time is a superb example of the new direction taken by this colorist. At the turn of the millennium in 1999, “Carol Summers Woodcuts...

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