Print of the Day!! Mon, Dec 6, 2021, is by Frederick O'Hara (1904-1980): "Roundup - Series III", color woodcut, 1954, 27/30. $2,500.00.

The Print of the Day!! Monday, December 6, 2021, is by New Mexico printmaker Frederick O'Hara (1904-1980).

?"Roundup - Series III" is a relief print, a color woodcut, done in 1954 by New Mexico printmaker Frederick O'Hara (1904-1980). The image measures 11-13/16 x 28-7/8 inches. This impression is pencil signed, titled, and editioned "27/30" in the lower margin and is signed in the block in the lower right image. This edition was printed by the artist in on sheet of smooth ivory wove paper that measures 16 x 33 inches. Traugott lists a print titled "Roundup" on page 30 with roughly the same dimensions and no edition size. The inventory number for this etching is 23920.

This Modernist color woodcut by printmaker Frederick O'Hara (1904-1980) is available from the gallery for $2,500.00.

Contact the gallery with any condition or other questions. Shipping costs will be discussed. California residents will have sales tax added. Out of state residents may be responsible for use tax, depending on state law.

O'Hara's printmaking was always pushing the edges of imagery and technique, always experimental. In this print he has enhanced the woodgrain of the background block and printed the resulting grainy texture in a couple of passes using different colors. On top of this he has created a herd of longhorn cattle and a cowboy and horse using small blocks, printed in blacks and browns.

The overall composition could well be a response to the 1948 Stan Jones western song "(Ghost) Riders in the Sky" the first two verses of which reads: An old cowboy went riding out / One dark and windy day / Upon a ridge he rested / As he went along his way / When all at once a mighty herd / Of red eyed cows he saw / Plowin' through the ragged skies / And up the cloudy draw.

"Roundup-Series III" is not illustrated in Joseph Traugott's catalog "Stony Silence" analyzing the prints of Frederick O'Hara, but is perhaps listed in the checklist in the back.

James Frederick O'Hara, painter, printmaker, and teacher, was born on 6 August 1904 in Ottawa, Canada. His family moved to the United States in 1918 settling in Newport News, Virginia. As a young man, having failed the Harvard College entrance examinations, O'Hara journeyed to Boston hoping to enhance his education and his chances on future examinations. He was hired as a copy boy at the Boston Globe with the caveat that he study commercial art techniques.

O'Hara enrolled at the Massachusetts Normal Art School where he studied between 1922 and 1926 and received his diploma. He then studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston between 1926 and 1929. O'Hara received a Paige Traveling Scholarship in 1929 and used it to travel for six years to the various European art centers and to study at Instituto de Bellas Artes in Toledo, Spain.?

He returned to the United States in 1935 and had several exhibitions of his work in venues in Boston, Connecticut, and New York. O'Hara also taught for a year at the William and Mary extension in Norfolk, Virginia. He was hired to direct the Santa Barbara School of the Arts in California (1937-1939) and on his route there he visited New Mexico for the first time.

After marrying Mary Louise Robinson in 1939, the couple moved to Suffern, New York and then to Tucson, Arizona in 1940. The following year they moved to a small ranch on the Guadalupe Trail, north of Albuquerque, New Mexico, and O'Hara began teaching painting intermittingly at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. In 1949, printmaker Adja Yunkers moved to Albuquerque and the two artists became fast friends. Yunkers taught O'Hara his woodcutting and monotype techniques. The following year O'Hara learned lithography from New Mexico printmaker Elmer Schooley.

O'Hara began a series of experimental prints, transferring his monotypes onto lithographic plates, which he describes in detail in an essay "An Adventure in Printmaking" in 1960. His technique included stencil, Formica and paper cut outs and unusual inking to create his abstract images which focused heavily on Navajo culture and spirituality. He authored "Toward Technical Excellence in Printmaking" for Artist's Proof magazine in 1961. O'Hara create a series of color lithographs at the newly founded Tamarind Workshop in Los Angeles, California between 1961 and 1962. In 1962 O'Hara moved to La Jolla, California and during this period his work became more figurative.

To purchase this work or read a biography for James Frederick O'Hara use this link to our website: https://www.annexgalleries.com/inventory/artist/1761/O'Hara/Frederick

Use this link to view our complete inventory on our website: https://www.annexgalleries.com/inventory?q