'A Winter Afternoon' by Gordon Mortensen, 1979, Wood Engraving, Smithsonian, Carnegie, Brooklyn Museum, Art Institute of Chicago

Description

Signed lower right, 'G. Mortensen' for Gordon Mortensen (American, born 1938) and dated 1979. Titled lower left, 'A Winter Afternoon' … more Signed lower right, 'G. Mortensen' for Gordon Mortensen (American, born 1938) and dated 1979. Titled lower left, 'A Winter Afternoon' with number and limitation, lower center, '255/300'.
Paper dimensions: 15 x 22 inches.

Gordon Mortensen received his BFA degree with Honors in 1964 from the Minneapolis School of Art (now the Minneapolis College of Art and Design) and he was enrolled in the graduate program at the University of Minnesota in St. Paul between 1969 and 1972. Originally a portrait painter, Mortensen almost entirely abandoned that media for reduction woodcutting, achieving the creative freedom he desired. He is one of the few practicing artists of this method in the United States. During this transitional time, he taught briefly at the Saint Paul Art Museum, the Rochester Art Center, and the Minnetonka Art Center in Wayzata.

Mortensen describes his reduction woodcut process:
"Only one woodblock is used. On it an image is drawn in India ink. Before the first color is printed, any areas that are to remain unprinted (white or the color of the paper) are cut away from the surface of the block. Then an oil base ink is used to print the first color on all of the sheets of paper that are to be used for the edition and proofs. After the first printing the block is again cut, removing any surface of the block that is to remain the first color in the finished print. After each subsequent color is printed, the block is cut, the process continues until the print is finished and most of the surface of the block is cut away."

His later woodcuts frequently have between twenty-three to forty-seven colors, requiring between twenty and thirty-five passes through the press and taking as much as a month to complete.

Mortensen produced membership prints for the Albany Print Club and the Print Club of Rochester, New York and is a member of the Boston Printmakers. He has exhibited widely and with success including throughout the Midwest and the Brooklyn Museum National Print Exhibition (1976), and is the recipient of numerous prizes and juried awards. Gordon Mortensen's works can be found in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Art Institute of Chicago, Walker Art Center, Carnegie Institute, Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, DeCordova Museum, Wichita Falls Museum and the Worcester Art Museum.

*With thanks to Annex Galleries, Santa Rosa, California less