Wiegand Gallery Press Release
Realism & Abstraction: Four Printmakers
David Smith-Harrison, Trevor Southey, Betty Friedman, Misch Kohn
March 19-April 24th
Notre Dame de Namur University’s Wiegand Gallery is proud to present Realism & Abstraction: Four Printmakers, starting on March 19 and running through April 24th. The exhibition will feature artwork by four master printmakers: David Smith-Harrison, Trevor Southey, Betty Friedman and Misch Kohn. The opening reception will be held on Sunday, March 28th from 2-4 p.m. A benefit for the Wiegand Gallery Exhibition Fund will be held on Saturday, April 17th from 4-7p.m. This event will feature a wine tasting and food pairing with a silent auction featuring artwork from the exhibition’s four master printmakers.
The artists present rich possibilities in contemporary printmaking. At first glance, the works in the exhibition represent two ends of a spectrum. On one hand, Southey and Smith-Harrison render a spiritual world of descriptive line and deep space, a vision that reaches back to Rembrandt. On the other, Misch Kohn and Betty Friedman celebrate planes of color, complex abstract structures, and an active, graphic line that has its roots firmly in the modernism of Picasso and the expressionism of Pollock. Yet there exists a subtle relationship between all four artists as we find a reaching toward representation in the abstract prints by Friedman and Kohn and the incorporation of abstract elements in the figurative work of Southey and Smith-Harrison.
The relationship between artists is interpersonal as well as formal. Kohn and Friedman were close friends for years, sharing a devotion to paper making that is such an integral part of their prints. They are the modernists of the show. Smith- Harrison was Southey’s protégée, and one can see in both their work an intense interest in rendering form and observing nature. They represent the classical tradition. Yet what might appear to be opposites seem to attract. The two camps complement each other the way an architect might contrast a modern building design with preexisting structures. This juxtaposition can heighten awareness of the beauty in both forms.
David Smith-Harrison is attracted to realism and approaches his work knowing that both conscious and unconscious influences will impart its direction. David says that he is “fascinated with the magic of drawing, or making marks which provide parallels with experience; marks which are able to express my feelings for form, space, light and movement.”
Trevor Southey was born in Rhodesia, Africa (now Zimbabwe). Trevor’s formal training includes two years at the Brighton College of Art in Sussex, England and a year in Durban, South Africa as well as two degrees from Brigham Young University. He also taught at BYU for 10 years. In addition to printmaking, Trevor is also well known as an artist in painting, bronze sculpture and stained glass.
Misch Kohn was a seminal figure in American printmaking for the past six decades. Misch’s prints are collected in over 100 museums internationally. He traveled to Mexico in the 1940s where he worked on murals with the great Mexican artists Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco. Kohn was awarded two Guggenheim fellowships that allowed him to travel to France where he printed in the same atelier with painters such as Pablo Picasso and Marc Chagall.
Betty Friedman received her BFA and MFA in printmaking from the California College of Arts & Crafts. Betty studied printmaking with Misch Kohn at California State University at Hayward and recalls how Misch broadened her horizons on the possibilities of printmaking. Her images moved from drawn, recognizable images printed by hand lithography to completely abstract images printed by intaglio on her own handmade paper. Betty’s work can be seen in various private and corporate collections.
Wiegand Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday 12-4 p.m. Admission is free. Visit the Wiegand website at www.wiegandgallery.org. For more information, call 650-508-3595.