PAST EXHIBITION

Arthur Wesley Dow

October 10, 2008—November 15, 2008

Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc. is pleased to announce a landmark exhibition of color woodcuts by Arthur Wesley Dow (1857–1922), a central figure in the Arts & Crafts movement in this country, whose sensual abstracted landscapes unite the Western artistic tradition with Asian principles of design. Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc. has represented the estate of Arthur Wesley Dow since 1999.

Born in Ipswich, Massachusetts in 1857, Dow studied in Boston, and like many young artists of his generation, traveled to France where he worked, between 1884 and 1889, at the Académie Julian in Paris and at Pont-Aven in Brittany. By 1890 he had returned to Boston and established a studio, but soon grew disillusioned with the prevailing art establishment’s strict adherence to classical Western traditions. Looking to other artistic doctrines for inspiration, Dow found himself drawn to Japanese art, and, in particular, to the work of the master of color woodcut, Katsushika Hokusai. His interest proved consuming, fueled by a burgeoning friendship with Ernest Fenellosa, then curator of Japanese art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Increasing familiarity with Japanese color woodcuts led Dow to a simplified method of working in his paintings, prints and photographs in which traditional modeling and perspective were eliminated in favor of flat and more formally imaginative compositions.

For Dow, the basic elements of design became line, color, and notan (the Japanese term for the arrangement of lights and darks). A dedicated teacher, Dow was one of the most sought-after and influential mentors at the turn of the century, whose important and often re-published book on design principles, Composition, significantly altered the development of art instruction in the United States. Although he mastered a variety of media, it was through his exploration of the possibilities of the color woodcut that he produced some of his most lasting accomplishments. His formally disciplined, yet lyrical approach to printmaking introduced new ways of seeing and composing that had a profound impact upon future generations of American artists. He thought of the color woodcut as:

. . . a painter’s art, for creative colour is the aim and purpose of the whole thing. It is a free craft, for the artist is his own engraver, printer, and publisher, producing by hand, single prints, no two alike. There is a peculiar pleasure in seeing the same design appear in different colours—the design seems to have a soul in each color scheme.

Arthur Wesley Dow will open Friday, October 10, and run through Saturday, November 15. Hirschl & Adler Galleries is open Tuesday through Friday from 9:30 am to 5:15 pm, and Saturdays from 9:30 a.m to 4:45 p.m.

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