Gallery 8 Invitation

Gallery 8 Invitation
Letterpress and tipped-on offset
lithograph, 6.25 x 4.75"
1963, Toledo OH

"Gallery 8" in the Toledo Museum of Art was often used for exhibitions of work by local or area artists, including this one which I shared with sculptor David Hysell, a sculptor on the teaching staff at the museum.

For this invitation, I "cannibalized" extra copies of several of the offset-lithograph landscapes I had produced during the two previous years.  David Hysell, who was admirably easy-going, did not seem to mind that the invitation featured my work and ignored his.

(Ed. Note - while David's invite "ignores" Hysell's work, a story in the February 5, 1963 edition of the Toledo Blade mentions Hysell at some length, albeit after noting David May's inclusion in the 20th American Drawings Annual.)

 

Leonard Dryansky Broadside

Leonard Dryansky Broadside
Letterpress & offset lithograph
8.5 x 11"
1961, Toledo (3 versions)

I did this drawing directly onto a paper offset plate and printed it, as an experiment on different papers in several different ink colors.  This version was created by intentionally printing the second color off-register.

Leonard Dryansky, a friend from Cleveland, was a part-time graduate student in art history at Western Reserve, director of the art program at Karamu (a Cleveland settlement house), and an amateur poet.  The quote is from "Mac Dougal Alley," a poem he had written some years earlier when he lived in Greenwich Village.

(Ed. Note - For those who may not know, Leonard Dryansky was an artist, playwright, and Professor Emeritus of theater history and design at Syracuse University. He was chief designer and production supervisor for the Syracuse Repertory Theatre Festival; resident designer and production supervisor for Berkshire Theatre Festival; resident designer and art director for the Karamu House in Cleveland; project director for the Labor Arts Center in New York City; and a founding member of the Sandisfield Arts and Restoration Committee.

Among his many achievements, he directed an acclaimed production of Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot" at Syracuse University.

He also served in the Merchant Marine during World War II and was an early organizer of the Merchant Seamen's Union. Source)

"Leonard Dryansky, Art Director of Karamu Theater, with Mrs. Paul Oppenheim, of the Suburban Temple Sisterhood (from 3388 Norwwod Rd., Shaker Hts.), at Karamu House."

- Text on back of photo taken from The Cleveland Memory Project 

River - Oil on Canvas, 20 x 14"

River

Oil on canvas, 20 x 14"

1963

I painted this entirely imaginary landscape as an exercise in creating the illusion of space without relying on traditional perspective.  I visualized this as a space seen in a convex mirror, looming toward the viewer in the middle and receding around the edges. 

Landscape - Oil on Burlap, 17.5 x 14.5

Landscape
Oil on burlap, 17.5 x 14.5"
1963

This painting is another experiment in space and perspective, painted around the same time as "River."  Here, I was trying to create a flat, frieze-like space that did not recede behind the picture plane but pushed out in front of it, rather in the manner of some Impressionist painters.  Technically, "Landscape" is also very different from "River" in that "Landscape" is thickly (and rather laboriously) painted with heavy impasto, a technique I was just moving away from.  By comparison, the technique in "River" is the direction I was heading.  The paint is much "juicier," thinned with lindseed oil and applied with rapid brush strokes.