Print of the Day!! Frid, Aug. 12, 2022, is by Clayton E. Walker (1924-2008): "Picking Up the Long End", color woodcut, 1959, 12/12. $1,800.00.

Print of the Day!! Friday, August 12, 2022, is by Abstract Expressionist printmaker Clayton E. Walker (1924-2008).

?"Picking Up the Long End" is a relief print, a color woodcut done in 1959. This impression is pencil signed, title, dated, and editioned '12/12' by the artist in the lower margin. The image measures 11-1/2 x 32 inches. It was printed by the artist on a sheet of cream laid paper. Our inventory number for this work is PEME112.

This rare hand-printed color relief print by Clayton E. Walker is available from the gallery for $1,800.00.

An undulating landscape or structure sprawls across the sheet in Clayton Walker's large format, intricate color woodcut. A common approach in Walker's woodcuts was the use of saturated, often primary colors, presented in bold swaths like brushstrokes and enmeshed with delicate, kinetic line-work. In both his figurative and non representational compositions, movement is inevitable, and in "Picking Up the Long End" he carries the viewer's eye from end to end and off the sheet, as though the abstract subject is on parade.

A life of constant discovery led Walker from Kentucky to Europe and finally to Southern California, where he built a home that itself served as a massive art project, as well as his studio and personal gallery, for the final forty years of his life. Much like his woodcuts, his home reflected Walker's unstoppable energy.

Walker decided to continue his education in the arts and in the late 1940s he entered the University of Toledo, where he received a master's in painting and minor in art history. It wasn't long before he began teaching art in both private and community colleges, even venturing overseas to take up posts there, as well. In 1955, the Walkers traveled to England and Paris, where Clay attended the Ecole des Beaux Arts. It was there he met Picasso, who became a longtime friend and supporter of Walker's.

Walker soon began exhibiting both in the U.S. and internationally, and it wasn't long before acquisitions were made by the Museum of Modern Art, the Library of Congress, San Francisco Museum of Art, and the Butler Museum of Art. Artists such as Miro and Calder traded works with him. Meanwhile, as his commercial success flourished, his love of teaching never ceased, and took a post in Texas as art director at the San Antonio Art Institute in 1960. He remained there until 1963, when he and Muriel moved to Vista, California, designing and building his house and studio and taking up several teaching positions.

To purchase this work, see other works, or read a biography for Clayton E. Walker use this link to our website: https://www.annexgalleries.com/inventory/artist/4409/Walker/Clayton

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