From Library Journal
Dox Thrash always knew he wanted to be an artist. He left rural Georgia at the turn of the century and took night courses at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago while working as an elevator operator. Although his career was interrupted by service in World War I, he earned a living as a graphic designer until the Depression. After settling in Philadelphia, Thrash joined the Fine Print workshop of the WPA, where he was instrumental in discovering the carborundom technique, an intaglio process whose results resemble a mezzotint. His depictions of everyday life, memories of the South, graceful nudes, and humanistic portraits convey an African American social realism that have hardly been appreciated until now. Curator and organizer of a major retrospective at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Ittmann has assembled a catalogue raisonn‚ along with four essays by additional scholars dealing with the artist's life plus the social milieu of his time. WPA artists made important contributions to American art history, and the African American artists among them are especially underrepresented in most collections, making this high-quality book a worthwhile purchase. Susan Lense, Upper Arlington P.L., OH
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Booklist
Georgia-born Dox Thrash (1893-1965) always knew he would be an artist, but he also had a yen for travel and did so as part of a vaudeville act. He eventually made his way to the Art Institute of Chicago, one of the few art schools to welcome black artists, and became accomplished in both fine arts and graphic design. Thrash made Philadelphia his home and soon made history as coinventor of a new form of printmaking, the carborundum mezzotint. The creator of fresh, expressive works distinguished by technical mastery, brilliant use of line and contrast, and powerfully evocative atmospheres, he was, as prints curator Ittmann writes in the first of four illuminating essays, "a multi-faceted artist with a poetic sensibility, dashing style, and a winning sense of humor." But he also possessed an abiding sense of justice and empathy. Marked by his confrontations with racism, Thrash subtly conveyed the psychological toll prejudice exacts, especially in his sensitive portraits of women. This laudable volume is the first to publish a complete illustrated catalogue raisonne of Thrash's magnificent prints. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
