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| Woodcuts - Printmaking Methods |
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(20 Nov 2008) |
The woodcut has an ancient and noble lineage and of all the printmaking processes it is the oldest and probably the most distinguished. The earliest woodcuts were made in China and examples have survived from the 9th century AD., although it is likely that cuts were produced before that.
A woodcut is made on the plank, a wood engraving on the end grain and the two methods have very little in common, yet many erroneously assume that the terms are synonymous They are not. Woodcuts have been widely produced in Eastern Europe - Poland, Yugoslavia, Hungary and what was East Germany and they have a lively tradition in the U.S.A. The material used has a hard, harsh, angular, splintery character and the woodcut in the west in the twentieth century has reflected much of this vicious energy in the quality of the finished image. In England, sadly, the woodcut has been generally neglected, often misunderstood, except by practitioners like Michael Rothenstein and a very few others.
Graham has been making woodcuts since the late fifties, has illustrated books and magazines with them, has regularly written on the subject and has produced a series of very large colour woodcuts some of which are represented in national collections such as the Kupferstichkabinett Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin and the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart. He cuts his block with two or three small gouges and prints them by hand burnishing with a spoon. In 1988 the Goldmark Gallery inaugurated a programme of editioning some of the large colour woodcuts. Over forty have been editioned to date and a selection of these is included in this exhibition. One of these has been the subject of a recent video-film. |
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There is 1 article on Michael Rothenstein:
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