An Exhibit of Prints, Private Press Books, Botanical Illustrations, Wood Engravings, Carvings and Photographs
Curated by Nancy E. Green,
The Gale and Ira Drukier Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University
A reception and curator's talk, with workshop on wood block printing by Jenny Pope of the Ink Shop, and exhibit tour by James Tyler, PhD, will be held on December 1, 2011, from 6:00 to 7:30 PM in the Thaler/Howell Program Room. The exhibit will be on display until December 31, 2011.
Born in 1919 in Washington, DC, Elfriede Abbe graduated from Cornell in 1940 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and worked as an illustrator for Cornell from 1942 until her retirement in 1974. Since then, she has continued her artistic output from her studio in Manchester Center, Vermont, printing her own private press books, botanical illustrations, and wood engravings, and creating sculptures. Even today Abbe sets all her type by hand, one letter at a time, and prints on a Chandler & Price platen press which is entirely hand-operated.Abbe’s remarkable career began with the exhibition of her sculpture The Hunter at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Other awards include the Tiffany Foundation Fellowship (1948), gold medals from Pen and Brush, New York (1964), the National Arts Club (1970), the Academy of Artists Association in Springfield, Massachusetts (1976), and the E. Liskin Cash Award at the Salmagundi Club (1979), among others.
Abbe’s preferred choice of medium has always been wood—both as a basis for her sculpture and as a surface for her engravings, the blocks themselves transforming into works of art. Equally important for her print and book projects is the choice of papers. These are carefully selected to create a harmonious marriage between the image and the surface on which it’s printed, each complimenting the other.
The subjects of Abbe’s work range from the botanical to the Biblical, all carefully thought out and rendered with simple precision. This seeming simplicity is deceptive though; after a longer acquaintance with her work, details are revealed, and it is easy to appreciate the delicate and deft hand that creates these artistic jewel.
