Concept
Fiske Boyd (1895-1975) woodcut Concept, 1951, signed in pencil [also initialed and dated in the block], from the edition of 100 published by the Society of American Etchers-Engravers and Woodcutters, NY.
A fine impression, in very good condition, with wide margins, on a heavy cream wove paper, 12 x 9 inches (the sheet 17 1/4 x 14 1/4), archival mounting.
This is a modernist view of the East River Drive (also known as Franklin Delano Roosevelt Drive), New York City. (The tall building is the UN Building, etc.) One of Boyd’s most famous images, this print is frequently chosen by museum curators to represent the post War modernist woodcut in America (and it is featured in the collection of many museums such as the Smithsonian Museum of American Art or the San Francisco Museum of Art).
Fiske Boyd printed each of his woodcuts by hand, “by hand rubbing with the back of a spoon.” He said that “Even though it is relatively labourious and takes too long the way I do it, I come back to it time and time again….the very tediousness of the labor involved makes possible – nay unavoidable – the working out of a pictorial design with a kind of deliberateness that gives a peculiar control over certain aspects of the work.”