Label Text: Artists and scholars value successive proofs for their ability to illustrate the process of developing and refining a printing matrix. This series documents a single printing plate at six distinct phases (or states) in its development. Annotations on certain impressions further clarify Haskell’s working methods.
This progression is perhaps the best record of Haskell’s methods at the time he taught an etching course at the Art Students League, before printmaking was offered as a full-time course. The image evolves according to Whistler’s “secret of drawing,” which guaranteed a finished picture, regardless of the level of detail the draftsman gave it. Somewhat like a newspaper story that presents information in descending order of importance, so that it can be easily truncated at the end, Whistler worked so that if he stopped at any point, the composition would read as complete.
Haskell continually experimented as the proofing process unfolded. He selected an imported Japanese paper for the proofs, then switched to a more conventional laid paper for the final state.
Considered together, these progressive impressions of Haskell’s Under the Hill show that developing a print involves more than a mere accumulation of visual information. The process is both additive and subtractive, and a printmaker puts as much consideration into what is excluded as into what is drawn.
KG, How He Was to His Talents exhibition, March 24, 2011-August 7, 2011
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