Exhibitions
Fritz Eichenberg, The Story of Jonah
Circa 1955, wood engraving
Academy Art Museum, Gift of Grover Batts, Washington DC
IMAGES FROM THE BIBLE: WOOD ENGRAVINGS BY FRITZ EICHENBERG
December 13, 2010 - February 27, 2011
Fritz Eichenberg was born in Cologne, Germany, in 1901. He left Europe, when Adolf Hitler came to power, and moved to New York. There the artist received commissions to illustrate Gulliver’s Travels and Crime and Punishment for the Limited Editions Club, followed by Russian classics by Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, the stories of Edgar Allen Poe, and Brontës’ Jane Eyre.
In 1947, Eichenberg began to teach at Pratt Institute (New York) and created the ADLIB Press. In 1956, he became Chairman of the Department of Graphic Arts and also founded the Pratt Graphic Arts Center in Manhattan, where he served as director until 1968. In addition, he served as Chairman of the Art Department at the University of Rhode Island until 1969. The artist died in 1990.
As for the current selection of wood engravings, seven of the nine were part of a set (published in an edition of 200) depicting Old Testament narratives. The technique employed by the artist is a relief printing process where the end grain of wood is used as a medium for engraving.
The nine prints on view, from the Academy Art Museum’s permanent collection, were a gift from Grover Batts, a Washingotn D.C. resident who promised his entire collection of prints to the museum.