Frances Gearhart
| Frances Gearhart | |
|---|---|
 Frances Gearhart, 1900 | |
| Born |
Frances Hammell Gearhart January 4, 1869 Sagetown, Illinois, United States |
| Died |
April 4, 1958 (aged 89) Pasadena, California, United States |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | State Normal School at Los Angeles (1891) |
| Known for |
Printmaking Watercolor |
| Website |
www |
Frances Gearhart (1869–1959) was an American printmaker and watercolorist known for her boldly drawn and colored woodcut and linocut prints of American landscapes. Focused especially on California's coasts and mountains, this body of work has been called "a vibrant celebration of the western landscape."[1] She is one of the most important American color block print artists of the early 20th century.[1][2]
Early years and education
Frances Hammell Gearhart was born January 4, 1869, in Sagetown, Illinois.[3] She moved to California in 1888 and began studying at the State Normal School at Los Angeles (now UCLA) the following year.[3] She graduated in 1891 and thereafter supported herself for several years teaching English at the high school level.[3] At some point, she received further training in art from Charles Herbert Woodbury and Henry Rankin Poore.[1] She may also have taken a class from Frank Morley Fletcher, who was instrumental in bringing Japanese woodblock techniques to Europe and America.[2]
Art career
Gearhart's first exhibition, in 1911, was a group of watercolors of California landscapes.[3] Even at this early stage, critics noted her as a colorist who promised to develop into "one of the strongest of California's landscape painters."[1] She continued exhibiting watercolors for several years before moving into printmaking—especially linocuts and woodcuts—which would become her preferred medium.[3][4]
Gearhart was taught block printing by her sisters May and Edna, also artists, who had learned it from Arthur Wesley Dow at the Ipswich Summer School of Art in Massachusetts.[4] She worked in a traditional Japanese relief-printing method, creating a separate block for each color in the final print, with individual prints requiring up to 8 separate blocks.[5] It is estimated that she created some 250 different prints altogether in editions of 20–50, each of which was printed by hand.[5][2]
Influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement, Gearhart made prints that featured strong use of inky black or dark blue lines together with rich foreground colors set off against muted deep backgrounds.[5] She frequently included paths, roads, and waterways to lead the viewer into the image and made use of sentinel trees to anchor her compositions.[2] The fusion of stark lines with atmospheric color and light in her images makes her style singuarly well suited to depict California's unique combination of "serene and stark beuaty."[2]
Gearhart became a member of the Print Makers Society of California (PMSC) in 1919 and was one of the organization's leaders during its formative years.[3] In 1920, she was commissioned to make the first of what became the PMSC's annual series of gift prints.[1] She later joined the Prairie Print Makers and the American Federation of the Arts as well.[3]
By 1923, Gearhart was able to leave teaching and devote herself full time to art. She and her sisters May and Enda set up an art gallery in Pasadena, CA, where they curated exhibitions for the PMSC and for leading European printmakers.[3]
In 1924 Gearhart had a two-person exhibition with May at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. This was followed by participation in exhibitions at other museums, including the Brooklyn Museum, the Toronto Museum, and the Worcester Art Museum. Her work is in the collection of numerous museums and art institutions.[3]
Gearhart's output declined after 1940 as her eyesight failed, and she died in Pasadena on April 4, 1958.[3]
In 1990, the Cheney Cowles Museum held an exhibit of Gearhart's work, and in 2009 the Pasadena Art Museum mounted a major retrospective.[2][6]
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 Futterman, Susan. "Behold the Day: The Color Block Prints of Frances Gearhart". Resource Library, Nov. 19, 2009. Retrieved March 4, 2016.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Biographical Sketch". University of Vermont website. Retrieved March 4, 2016.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Sonstegard, Viki. "Frances Hammell Gearhart: Printmaker and Woodblock Artist". Women Out West: Art on the Edge of America. Nov. 3, 2015. Retrieved March 4, 2016.
- 1 2 Javid, Christine. Color Woodcut International: Japan, Britain, and America in the Early Twentieth Century. Chazen Museum of Art, 2006, pp. 50–53.
- 1 2 3 "The Art in Arts & Crafts: Frances Gearhart". Collector's Guide. Retrieved March 4, 2016.
- ↑ Netburn, Deborah. "Frances Gearhart Color Block Prints at the Pasadena Museum of California Art". Los Angeles Times, L.A. at Home section, Dec. 3, 2009. Retrieved March 4, 2016.
External links
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