Shore Forms

Doris Seidler

Doris Seidler, British by birth, began working with Stanley William Hayter at Atelier 17 in New York in 1940 and spent almost 10 years working there. This remarkable print is a result of trying to "destroy the plate" using different intaglio techniques. It won a Medal Of Honor from the National Association of Women Artists.

Doris Seidler had been an amateur artist in England before her marriage and later, in her husband's business absences, Hayter accepted her as a pupil in his wartime art classes in New York in 1940, teaching the approach of Atelier 17. After returning to England in 1945 she emigrated to the US in 1948 and returned to working in the New York studio into the 1950s.

As an associate of Hayter's she learned not only the diverse techniques of gravure, but a philosophy centered on Hayter's overriding principle, "adequate motive", which meant that superb skills are not enough.

"Shore Forms" leads the viewer through an elaborate maze of lines, shapes and textures, light to dark and weaving in and out while being contained in abstract shapes on a black background. Seidler loved drawing and collage and this contains a variety of drawing with the feeling of a collage.