Saturday, December 9, 2017

A New Deal Winter & Christmas: "December Trees"

Above: "December Trees," a lithograph by Grant Arnold (1904-1988), created while he was in the WPA's Federal Art Project, 1935. There seems to be very little information about Arnold on the Internet, or in newspaper archives, but a 1936 article noted that he had "considerable attention in the art world" for his lithography skills: "He avoids the slipshod liberty sometimes taken in modern graphic art. The result is a presentation of scene familiar to today's beholder. Through his craftsman-like treatment he is able to convey his sensory reaction [with] compositional clarity." The article also reports that he taught an art class in Woodstock, New York, "attended by students from all parts of the country," and "As a true craftsman he follows the entire lithographing process, making his own sketch, drawing it on the stone and doing the actual printing on his hand press" ("Grant Arnold Shows Lithographs at Little Art Shop, Woodstock," The Kingston Daily Freeman (Kingston, New York), July 10, 1936). Image courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

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