Woodblock prints.
Romano, Clare. Woodcut and Lithographic Cards. Ca. 1949-69.
Various sizes, on a variety of uncoated paper stocks, from cardstock to cotton rag to Japanese rice; in numerous colors, including gilt and silver inks; most with autograph inscriptions.
Clare Romano earned her BFA from Cooper Union in 1943, and beginning around 1949 sent a series of twenty-two prints to fellow artist Philip Grushkin, most of them in the form of holiday cards, and many of very limited edition. Her early missives were created using lithography, but the remainder exhibit her remarkable and stunningly original grasp of the woodblock technique. Printed using a wide variety of colors and themes — some Biblical, but most based on places she was living in or traveled to, such as Yugoslavia — and on several different types of textured paper, the cards are often augmented with quotes from notable authors such as Shakespeare, Dylan Thomas, Christopher Marlowe, and William Blake, and most are warmly inscribed from either Romano and her husband John Ross, or the two of them and their children, Chris and Tim. An exception to the holiday cards is Romano’s 1958 announcement of the family’s year-long move to Florence, Italy, due to her reception of a Fulbright Grant.
Following her return to the United States in 1959, Romano focused increasingly on teaching, and has been a prominent advocate of women in the arts, with a special emphasis on encouraging young female art students. She was a founder of the Art Center of Northern NJ, and has taught at the New School and at Pratt, where she was named a Distinguished Professor. Her work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the British Museum, and the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, among others. She is the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, a Louis Comfort Tiffany Grant, a Florscheim Grant, a NJ Council on the Arts Grant, and several MacDowell Art Colony Fellowships. She was also a past president of the Society of American Graphic Artists. Additionally, Romano has teamed with her husband, John Ross, on two highly-regarded technical books: The Complete Printmaker (1972) and The Complete Collagraph (1980).
Provenance: From the collection of designer Philip Grushkin.
(#4655524)
Print Inquire