Karl Wirsum Art

Bright orange leaps up like flames, or swaying grass, over which hovers a large-eyed bee sketched in black and orange. Over the fire-red in neat handwriting Ron Padgett...

Leonard Merchant's mezzotint, "Snail in Cup" is inscribed for fellow artist, Fritz Eichenberg. While a student at the Central School for Arts and Crafts in London, a young Leonard Marchant found an engraving rocker in a cupboard and proceeded to turn himself into a master of the painstaking art of mezzotinting. Marchant, who has died in Shrewsbury aged 70, grew up in Simonstown, the Royal Navy's enclave in South Africa. Though his first job was as a parliamentary messenger, he taught himself to paint and, aged 19, was given a one-man show in Cape Town. Fired by this success, he left for England to study painting and, he claimed, to escape the stifling home atmosphere created by his Catholic mother and aunts. (His father was killed in the second world war.) Without contacts in London, he phoned Jacob Epstein, whose recommendation resulted in a grant to study briefly at the Central School. It was later, when studying full-time at the Central, that he saw the mezzotints of the Japanese master, Yozo Hamaguchi, in a London gallery. He was hooked. Creating a mezzotint is tedious in the extreme. The copper plate must first be prepared with a "rocker" which roughens the surface. A plate may be "rocked" 30 or 40 times. The rough texture is then reduced with a burnisher and a scraper, allowing the print a range of tones from velvety black through the greys to white. Marchant's plates could be months in the making. But the technical demands were the least of his worries. In its 18th- and 19th-century heyday, mezzotint was solely a reproductive medium, for copying masters such as Reynolds and Turner. The development of photography rendered it unfashionable, and by the 1960s the technique, known as la manière anglaise, was a bygone medium. Marchant, by now a teacher in printmaking at the Central, began to create original mezzotints with a colleague, Radavan Kraguly. A perfectionist, he seemed to revel in the straitjacket procedure. Perhaps it was the metaphor of bringing darkness out of light that appealed to this straight-talking, sometimes sombre, man, who would suddenly relax and light up like a gleaming hue on one of his prints. His work was of squares and triangles with the occasional cat, black and ominous, and carefully arranged still lifes, featuring plants, a seed pod, a pot he might have bought at auction to celebrate the sale of a print. There were one-man shows, notably at the Bankside Gallery. He sold well at the Royal Academy summer exhibition, was a Florence Biennale prizewinner, spent a fellowship year at the British School in Rome, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers. But making mezzotints was not a paying job. Marchant and his South African wife...

This Blue Dog work consists of a blue dog in the middle of a red, white, and blue background. The dog is wearing a yellow neckerchief and a large black western hat with gold trim on ...

James Seymour (1702-1752) A Standing Leap at a Gate Mezzotint with hand colouring Image size 10 x 14 in Framed size 16 1/2 x 20 in James Seymour was an English artist renowned for h...

Artist: Andy Warhol Title: Cow Medium: Screenprint on wallpaper Date: 1966 Edition: Unnumbered Frame Size: 52 1/2" x 36 1/4" Sheet Size: 45 1/2" x 29 3/4" Signature: Unsigned Refere...

Walasse Ting 丁雄泉 Green Cat, 1984 Color etching and aquatint on copper plate, printed on Fabriano Rosaspina paper Pencil signed, numbered 178/230, dated 1984 along with artist's perso...

Artist: George Rodrigue Title: Union Station (Blue Dog for President) Medium: Silkscreen Year: 1996 Edition: 36/150 Framed Size: 31" x 42" Sheet Size: 18" x 30" Signed: Hand signed a...

"Final Spring" is an original color lithograph by Michael Knigin. The artist signed and titled in the lower center of image. This piece is an artist's proof and features a brightly c...

"Mizuhiki" is an exclusive publication by Stone + Press in an edition of 100. Katsunori Hamanishi was born in 1949 on Hokkaido island - Japan's second largest island. In 1973 he fi...

"Boldest Flyer" is an original color lithograph by Michael Knigin. The artist signed the piece in the lower right and editioned/titled it lower center with graphite. This piece featu...

Owl is an etching on paper, realized by the French artist and print-maker master Mario Avati (1921-2009). Hand-signed on the lower right and numbered on the lower left in pencil. Ed...

Printer’s ink from rubber stamp on vélin d’Arches Satine paper. Paper Size: 8 x 8 inches. Inscription: Unsigned, as issued. Notes: From the folio, Rubber Stamp Portfolio, 1977. Publi...