Print of the Day!! Mon, Sept. 5, Labor Day, 2022 is by Emmanuel Montoya (born 1952) "Farm Workers"; color linocut; A/P; 1986. $400.00.
Print of the Day!! Monday, September 5, Labor Day, 2022 is by Emmanuel C. Montoya (born 1952).
"Farm Workers" is a relief print, a color linocut by self described Apachecano printmaker Emmanuel C. Montoya done in 1986. The image measures 14 x 18 inches. This impression is pencil signed, dated, editioned "A/P" (artist's proof, outside the edition of 20) and is inscribed: "para mis / amigos / Seymour y Millie / Kaplan / con respect / y carino / Emmanuel " by the artist in the lower margin. It was printed by the artist on a soft, antique-white laid paper that measures 17-1/2 x 19 inches. This impression is from the estate of TGP printmaker Seymour Kaplan. Our inventory number for this color linocut is PAKA121.
This color linocut proof by Emmanuel C. Montoya (born 1952) can be purchased from the gallery for $400.00.
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.
Farm Workers depicts the plight of all farmworkers, bending all day under a blazing sun as they harvest crops for the voracious American marketplace. Organized farmworkers are visible at the edge of the field picketing for a united farmworkers union with fair pay and decent working conditions while a few workers continue to pick the fields under the blazing sun. Seymour Kaplan (1919-2011) , to whom this work is dedicated, was a printmaker who studied at Mexico City College in 1949 and later worked at El Taller de Grafica Popular in Mexico City.?
Emmanuel Catarino Montoya, a descendent of Apache and Mexican heritages, was born in Corpus Christi, Texas on April 16, 1952. Montoya resides in the San Francisco Bay Area where he attended public schools. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1985 and a Master of Fine Arts in printmaking in 1991 from San Francisco State University.
According to Montoya, the Chicano Movement of the late 1960s and 1970s, the master printmakers and muralists of 20th century Mexico and Latin America, and the Federal Art Project Works Progress Administration in North American during the 1930s and 40s, influenced his style. When he was a young artist living in San Francisco n the 1960s, Bill Graham's rock concert posters, with their splashing, colorful imagery and flowing text that represented the art and music of the time, had a major impact on the art he was producing.
To purchase this woodcut or read a biography for Emmanuel C. Montoya use this link: https://www.annexgalleries.com/inventory/artist/1633/Montoya/Emmanuel
Use this link to view our complete inventory on our website: https://www.annexgalleries.com/inventory?q=
An updated rerun of last year's personal reflection about Labor Day for those who might be interested.
Each day I select the Print of the Day!! on a bit of a whim; new inventory, old works that I re-discover in the gallery files, etc. If the day is special I search for something that, at least in my wandering mind, relates to the event. Today I chose "Farm Workers" for some personal reasons. It seems that as I age I also become more introspective as I try to understand what the hell this is all about - for myself. The recent pandemic taught many of us who are really the most essential workers and they aren't the money managers. They are the workers; the laborers, doctors and nurses, construction workers, clerks, cleaners, and on and on. The workers that pick, and package our food, usually under difficult weather conditions, rank among the most essential and the least acknowledged. At least they have this day.
My father never went to college, returning to the work force after his stint in the US Navy in the early 1940s. He worked on the line at Evangeline Evaporated Milk company in Sawyer (Sturgeon Bay), Wisconsin. He worked a 40 hour week, which had been defined by FDR, got extra pay for overtime, and had a secure job, guaranteed by his union, for which he was a representative. He took a second job as a shoe repairman, doing an apprenticeship with a local man on the weekends and some evenings. When I was in 8th grade, with a loan from a bowling friend who would loan money to farmers and physical workers (he checked my dad's hand for callouses, which he had in abundance) he was able to buy a house and shoe repair business in Algoma, from a man to was retiring and moving to Arizona.
After moving dad got another full-time job at the local US Plywood factory, where he once again worked on the line and became a union rep. My farmer grandmother worked in the repair shop taking orders during the day; my mother was a school teacher who had attended a Wisconsin "Normal School" which produced hundreds of teachers, including my younger brother. Dad repaired the shoes in the evenings and weekends in a shop in the front of the house.
I really didn't appreciate his labor for many years, we were not close - he was always working. I have become so thankful for his labors now, what he allowed me to become and what he gave up for an ordinary life of hard work. I could go on, but I won't. Happy Labor Day!!