Yesterday
Artist
Paul Landacre
(American, 1893–1963)
Date1940
Mediumwoodblock for the wood engraving, fruitwood
Dimensions23.6 x 15.7 x 2.3 cm (block)
ClassificationsArtists' Materials
Credit LineAnonymous Fund
Object number1986.86
Label TextPaul Landacre (1893-1963)
Though a relief process like woodcuts, wood engravings use burins, tools associated with intaglio engravings, rather than the chisels used to make woodcuts. Further, wood engravings use hard end-grain wood as opposed to the softer woods used in woodcuts. The harder wood allows for finer incisions thereby creating greater detail. However, like a woodcut, the impression results from those areas that are not cut away.
Wood engraving mostly declined into a commercial medium for book and newspaper illustration in the nineteenth-century. Paul Landacre resurrected the technique producing white-line wood engravings. Instead of having black lines on a white background, Landacre’s works appear as white images on a black background. The unsigned print with the estate stamp shows slight variation from the signed version on the warmer cream-colored paper. In the final, editioned version, there are additional highlights on the figure’s torso along with cross-hatching added in the area immediately surrounding her body.
ProvenanceZeitlin and Ver Brugge, Los Angeles, CA ( Anonymous Fund)On View
Not on view
Utagawa Kuniyoshi 歌川 国芳
1847–1852
