Betye Saar

Magnolia Flower, Bookmarks in the Pages of Life

2000

Silkscreen in colors and sepia-tones on Langdell fait à la main paper. Paper Size: 15 x 11 inches. Inscription: Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Notes: From the folio, Bookmarks i...

Silkscreen in colors and sepia-tones on Langdell fait à la main paper. Paper Size: 15 x 11 inches. Inscription: Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Notes: From the folio, Bookmarks i...

Silkscreen in colors and sepia-tones on Langdell fait à la main paper. Paper Size: 15 x 11 inches. Inscription: Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Notes: From the folio, Bookmarks i...

Silkscreen in colors and sepia-tones on Langdell fait à la main paper. Paper Size: 15 x 11 inches. Inscription: Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Notes: From the folio, Bookmarks i...

"As an African-American artist in today’s world, I embody the vast differences found in our collective backgrounds. I view them as cultural assets. We are always self discovering and...

Magnolia, c. 1946, oil on canvas, signed lower left, 22 3/4 x 25 3/4 inches, this original oil painting was part of Reindel's Flowers of Our Land series, commissioned by the John M...

Margo Humphrey, 'The Garden (Adam and Eve)', reductive color woodcut, 1989. Signed, dated, and annotated 'A/P' in pencil. Signed and dated in the image, lower right. A fine, richly-inked, artist's proof impression, with fresh, vivid colors, on BFK Rives, heavy, off-white wove paper; the full sheet with margins (1 to 1 3/8 inches), in excellent condition. Archivally sleeved, unmatted. Scarce. Image size 27 1/4 x 39 1/8 inches (692 x 994 mm); sheet size 29 1/2 x 42 inches (749 x 1,067 mm). ABOUT THIS WORK "Humphrey continued to reinterpret stories from the Bible with African American figures. In 1989 she published the woodcut print 'The Garden' at Magnolia Editions in Oakland, CA. For this rare foray into relief printmaking, she employed the reductive method, which uses only one block that is successively carved for each color segment, reducing the block with each cutting. Technically challenging, this lush and elaborate print is a testament to Humphrey’s skills as a printmaker. A youthful Adam and Eve are depicted in a luxuriant tropical landscape. Here, Humphrey chooses not to include the traditional symbols of humanity’s downfall but instead portrays them as being protected by angels in an atmosphere of idyllic bounty. ...Although Humphrey challenges traditional representation of Christian themes, her images are not iconoclastic but present a broader, more inclusive engagement with religious spirituality." — Adrienne L. Childs, 'Margo Humphrey, The David C. Driskell Series of African American Art: Volume VII,' Pomegranate Communications, Inc., 2009, page 71. ABOUT THE ARTIST American printmaker, illustrator, and art teacher Margo Humphrey was born in Oakland, California, in 1942. She earned a BFA in Painting and Printmaking from the California College of Arts and Crafts and a Master of Fine Arts degree in Printmaking from Stanford University. Humphrey began teaching in 1973 at the University of California Santa Cruz and has since taught at the University of Texas at San Antonio, the San Francisco Art Institute, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has also taught at the University of the South Pacific in Suva, Fiji; Yaba Technological Institute of Fine Art, Ekoi Island, Nigeria; the University of Benin in Benin City, Nigeria; the Margaret Trowell School of Fine Art in Kampala, Uganda, and the Fine Art School of the National Gallery of Art, Harare, Zimbabwe. In 1989, she was appointed Department Head of Printmaking at the University of Maryland in College Park. Humphrey has worked in lithography, monoprint, and woodcut with significant printmaking ateliers, including the Rutgers Center for Innovative Print and Paper, the Bob Blackburn Printmaking Workshop, and the Tamarind Institute in New Mexico. She was one of the earliest African-American woman artists to distinguish herself as a lithographer in a highly technical, male-dominated profession and was the first to have her prints published by Tamarind in 1974. Humphrey’s imagery combines historical perspective, autobiography, and fantasy to illuminate her experience as an African American woman. Bold, saturated color, animated figures, and syncopated rhythmic arrangements are hallmarks of Humphrey's oeuvre. Though Humphrey labels her distinctive style "sophisticated naive," the narrative complexity and technical skill of her works attest to her artistic virtuosity. Joyful, expressive, and at times humorous, her works offer engaging commentary on the presumptions of American culture and myth while embracing her personal vision of authenticity and spirituality. She developed her 1987 work The Last Bar-B-Que, a vividly colored transformation of the Last Supper, following a three-year period during which she examined portrayals of the iconic subject by artists from Pietro Lorenzetti to Emil Nolde. Her narrative work The Garden, a monumentally scaled reductive woodcut, is a further example of an archetypal subject—Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden—debunked and rendered with fresh, life-affirming vibrancy. Since her first solo exhibition in 1965, Humphrey’s works have been exhibited internationally. They are held in major institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art, The Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Hampton University Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum (London), the Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janeiro, and the National Gallery of Modern Art, Lagos. In 1996, she was invited to be part of the World Printmaking Survey at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. In 2011, Hampton University Museum mounted a 45-year retrospective of Humphrey’s work Her Story: Margo Humphrey Lithographs and Works on Paper, jointly curated by Robert E. Steele, executive director of the David Driskell...

BACKYARD by the artist James Denmark is an original hand drawn, limited edition lithograph printed on archival Somerset paper, 100% acid free using traditional hand lithography techniques. BACKYARD is one of Denmark's colorful collage compositions of everyday African American life - a soulful Southern country folk scene featuring a standing woman wearing a red orange skirt, multicolored floral print top, and dark indigo print head wrap; her male companion dressed in blue denim jeans, dark indigo print shirt and denim hat sitting in the backyard as the patchwork quilts flutter on the clothesline. Vivid coloration and textures captivate the eye with variety - deep violet, reds, fiery orange, touches of yellow, dark black and shades of blue - a very strong impression and fine example of hand lithography! Print size - 36.25 x 25.5 inches, unframed, mint condition, pencil signed and numbered by James Denmark, Certificate of Authenticity provided. Image size - 27.75 x 16.5 in. Edition size - 250, plus proofs Year published - 1996 Printer - J K Fine Art Editions Co., NJ Publisher - Mojo...