Thursday, May 19, 2016

Chicago Design Archive aficionados: Susan Jackson Keig


To Chicago Design Archive aficionados:
This is a photo of Susan Jackson Keig talking with reference librarian, Janis Versluis at the Society of Typographic Arts 85th Anniversary Celebration held at Wright in Chicago on 26 October 2012. This was the event that also featured: “Carl Regher: The Lost Journals.”

Keig is a Fellow and past-president of the STA. R. Roger Remington’s Graphic Design History Resource lists Susan Jackson Keig as a woman pioneer in design and a key individual in the development of American design.

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Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Ossip Zadkine: (re)considering the artist’s empathetic work — searching for “a true reality and a real truth”


Prometheus (1956), Bronze
Ossip Zadkine (1890–1967), Sculptor
Saint-Germain des Prés, Paris
photograph by © versluis 2010

Traditionally, Prometheus was ridiculed as the purveyor of good gifts to humankind — Zadkine’s Prometheus (in a beautifully subtle contrapposto pose) asks whether humankind is using the gift of fire for good or for ill. The consideration of Zadkine’s artworks again seem relevant in these disconcerting times.

One of the best reflections of Zadkine’s work was by Dutch artist, Henk Krijger (1913-1979). The following excerpt, subtitled, A christian style, is from Jan de Bree’s fine article, “Henk Krijger and the Institute for Christian Art / Patmos, 1969-1973”:

Krijger in his article Drie Overwegingen, discussed the christian artist and the development of a christian style. In his considerations he turned to the Russian sculptor, Ossip Zadkine, and showed how Zadkine’s work was important for the christian artist. According to Krijger, Zadkine, like so many other modern artists, experienced a cultural crisis. In his distress he searched for a ‘true reality and a real truth’ and broke through to the deepest deep, ‘the primordial state in which horror, fear and lostness were the characteristic emotions.’ Like Zadkine, the christian artist also was to break through to the deepest deep. The Christian had to break through the ‘schriftge­ leerden-wet or leer’ (the law or doctrine of Bible scholars) to the depths where prayer, the cry to God (an existential outburst) broke forth and a conversion took place. Going against the certainty of human knowledge and casting oneself upon God made the christian artist not a rebel against God, but a witness of the Word. He would be a witness of the Word in his own language, his christian art, with a true style. That is conversion.
The turning away from a kind of academic knowledge or dogma, as Krijger later called it, to an intuitive, emotional knowing was one of his main points in his view of art. …(1)
  1. de Bree, Jan. “Henk Krijger and the Institute for Christian Art/Patmos, 1969-1973.” Hommage `a Senggih: A Retrospective of Henk Krijger in North America. Ed. Jan de Bree. Toronto: Patmos Gallery, 1988. 25-26. Print.

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Saturday, May 7, 2016

Dordt College graphic design and printmaking student: Christina Chahyadinata (Crissy) from Jakarta (Tangerang), Indonesia


Christina Chahyadinata
Courage
Linocut 2016
9" x 12"

Christina Chahyadinata (Crissy) is a sophomore student from Jakarta (Tangerang), Indonesia. Crissy has the heart of a christian servant. This is her first linocut print and indicates her dexterity of hand-lettering and her ability to orchestrate the integrality of text and image. A Polynesian image of tropical and verdant flora…

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Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Dordt College printmaking student: Lance Wunderink, Lima, Peru


Lance Wunderink
Hidden Mystery
Linocut 2016
24" x 24"

Wunderink is a senior and graduating with a double major in graphic design and digital media production.

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