Carol Summers

"Phewa Tal, " Multicolored Abstract Landscape Woodcut signed by Carol Summers

1978

"Red, Yellow, Blue & Green" is an original color woodcut by Carol Summers. The artist signed the piece in the lower left. This woodcut depicts four color fields. The edition number i...

"Farewell" is an original color woodcut by Carol Summers. The artist signed the piece. This woodcut depicts a river flowing through green hills beneath a blood-red sky. The edition number is 20/50. 24 1/4" x 37" art 32" x 45" frame Carol Summers has worked as an artist throughout the second half of the 20th century and into the first years of the next, outliving most of his mid-century modernist peers. Initially trained as a painter, Summers was drawn to color woodcuts around 1950 and it became his specialty thereafter. Over the years he has developed a process and style that is both innovative and readily recognizable. His art is known for it’s large scale, saturated fields of bold color, semi-abstract treatment of landscapes from around the world and a luminescent quality achieved through a printmaking process he invented. In a career that has extended over half a century, Summers has hand-pulled approximately 245 woodcuts in editions that have typically run from 25 to 100 in number. His talent was both inherited and learned. Born in 1925 in Kingston, a small town in upstate New York, Summers was raised in nearby Woodstock with his older sister, Mary. His parents were both artists who had met in art school in St. Louis. During the Great Depression, when Carol was growing up, his father supported the family as a medical illustrator until he could return to painting. His mother was a watercolorist and also quite knowledgeable about the different kinds of papers used for various kinds of painting. Many years later, Summers would paint or print on thinly textured paper originally collected by his mother. From 1948 to 1951, Carol Summers trained in the classical fine and studio arts at Bard College and at the Art Students League of New York. He studied painting with Steven Hirsh and printmaking with Louis Schanker. He admired the shapes and colors favored by early modernists Paul Klee (Sw: 1879-1940) and Matt Phillips (Am: b.1927- ). After graduating, Summers quit working as a part-time carpenter and cabinetmaker (which had supported his schooling and living expenses) to focus fulltime on art. That same year, an early abstract, Bridge No. 1 was selected for a Purchase Prize in a competition sponsored by the Brooklyn Museum. In 1952, his work (Cathedral, Construction and Icarus) was shown the first time at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in an exhibition of American woodcuts. In 1954, Summers received a grant from the Italian government to study for a year in Italy. Woodcuts completed soon after his arrival there were almost all editions of only 8 to 25 prints, small in size, architectural in content and black and white in color. The most well-known are Siennese Landscape and Little Landscape, which depicted the area near where he resided. Summers extended this trip three more years, a decision which would have significant impact on choices of subject matter and color in the coming decade. After returning from Europe, Summers’ images continued to feature historical landmarks and events from Italy as well as from France, Spain and Greece. However, as evidenced in Aetna’s Dream, Worldwind and Arch of...

"Arroyo" is an original woodcut and monotype by Carol Summers. The artist signed the piece. It is from an edition of 120 and depicts an abstract landscape in blues and greens. 14 1...

The present woodcut engraving is an original print designed by Winslow Homer, originally published in Harper's Weekly on April 30, 1859. It is an excellent example of the many prints Homer produced of fashionable people engaged in leisurely activities, in this case along a picturesque countryside lane. The sign reading 'Belmont' on the left indicates this is probably near his home in Belmont Massachusetts. The image presents multiple figures, both men and women, riding horseback: Some in the distance gallop away, toward a town marked by a church steeple beyond. Three others in the foreground, including two equestrian women, gather around a group of children who have been gathering flowers and trapping birds...

Artist: Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) Japanese Title: The Moon Crossing Bridge at Arashiyama in Yamashiro Province Medium: Original Woodblock Print Year: 1853 - 1856 Dimensions: Framed 16" x 23", Unframed 8.5" x 13" Hiroshige Utagawa grew up in a samurai family in Edo where both him and his father were in the fire service before being orphaned. Hiroshige’s first formal art teacher was Rinsai. Though Hiroshige tried to join Toyokuni Utagawa's studio, he was turned away. In 1811, young Hiroshige entered an apprenticeship with the celebrated Toyohiro Utagawa. After only a year, he was bestowed with the artist name Hiroshige. He gave up his role in the fire department to focus entirely on painting and print design. He studied painting, intrigued by the Shijo school. Hiroshige’s artistic genius wasn’t recognized until 1832 when he became a master of the ukiyo-e woodblock printing tradition, creating 8000 prints in saturated color. His series of woodblock prints of the Tokaido road connecting Edo to Kyoto was his breakthrough series known as The 53 Stations of the Tokaido (1832-1833). His most renowned series was known as 100 Famous Views of Edo...

This black and white wood cut print is part of my private collection. It is artist signed and approved and a limited edition.

Landscape is a reprint of a woodblock realized after Shuko Yishi (1564- ?) The State of preservation is very good. Included a passepartout: 50 x 32.5 cm The artwork represents a p...

In The Port is an original woodcut print realized by Unknown Artist of the early 20th Century. In very good conditions. The artwork represents a port through delicate and precise s...