Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso was born on October the 25th, 1881 and died on April 8^th 1973, He was known for his cubist paintings and prints. In this print by Picasso of Still Life under the Lamp (1962) which is a lino cutting, showing fruit under a lamp. The colours used in this print are warm, from the light in the print he also keeps the colours to yellow, red and green. His print is interesting as it shows a simple subject and he has made it brilliant by making it more abstract. His use of lines has been cut well in the linograph. The chalice or cup has been done with great detail and I love how Picasso has used the light using sharp yellow to show where it hits.  I really like this print because of how Picasso has used lino to create his own style using warm ones and good cutting technique.

Graham Sutherland

Graham Sutherland 

Graham Sutherland, the British artist and printmaker was born on the 24^th august 1903 and died on the 17^th of February 1980. When looking at Sutherland’s work his etchings are very different to his paintings, much less abstract. He uses a Neo-Romantic style often using Pleasant themes, such as the country side and usually giving them an edge. This etching called St. Mary's Hatch (4 7/8" x 7 ¼) which was created in 1928 shows a country, village scene; the background has a church and a thatched cottage on the left and a dog running with working people. I overall think it is impressive what Sutherland has done with etching, getting good texture in such fine detail. Black and white is used in these prints which. The subject matter of the print is pretty, but I don’t find it that  very interesting; his print seems staged and I find it very different to the paintings he had created.

Karl Schmidt-Rottluff

Karl Schmidt-Rottluff

Karl Schmidt-Rottluff was born on the 1^st of December 1884 and died on the 10th of August 1976. He was a German Expressionist painter and printer. I had written about Karl Schmidt-Rottluff before and it was interesting to look at his prints again after trying lino cutting in Print making. He uses lino cutting on wood, with a size off 170x237mm; in this Print ‘Head of Woman’ (1915) I can see how Schmidt Rottluff uses lines to create this image; his lines are sharp from the cutting as I can see. The colours are the same as the last print, as he only uses black and white to show this. The woman has quite a sharp look, perhaps of anger, due to the sharp lines and use of black. Mostly black has been used mostly expect to show to show the lighter areas of the face. I do like this print due to its technique and expressionist style. I found that he does use this subject matter a lot in his prints, He uses a lot of detail and yet keeps the print simple. For example like this print 'Head of a Woman'.

 

Tom Davidson

Tom Davidson

Tom Davidson is a Printer who uses lino cutting as his preferred media. In 1995 he opened the “the Tom Davidson Gallery” in Earlston. Davidson graduated in Graphic Design in 1977 and also turned to printmaking by 1984. Tom also paints in various other media. In this print by Tom Davidson we can see he has chosen trees in blossom during the spring. In this lino print, which I do not know very much about is a landscape with four visible trees which are darker than the back ground. He uses many colours in this print and it is bright but with shadow where we the viewer is closest. He has hand drawn this print and I also think this is a very simple; I like it but I feel I it is very much just like a photograph; nothing really draws me to it. The use of line has been used well to get the detail in the branches.