White Heron

 

Alfred Rudolph

  1881 - 1942 (biography)

1934  

lithograph 

14 3/4 x 10 7/16" image 

pencil, lower right; monogram within image, lower right 

Artist's Proof 

titled and editioned in pencil, dated in stone 

 

white wove 

proof 

artist 

15986 

$600.00 

Alfrfed Rudolph arrived later than most to the art world. Having started as an engineer, eventually becoming vice-president of the American Ball Bearing Company and a consultant to the War Department during World War I, it wasn’t until ailing health forced him to retire to Nevada that he discovered printmaking. It then became the main focus of his life until he died in 1942. Perhaps due to his background in mechanical drafting, Rudolph’s images are careful, precise, and highly detailed. However, there is no lack of expression or beauty in his work, and his instinctual sense of composition is evident in the stunning “White Heron,” contrasting the bright, still, elongated form of the marsh bird against the elegant ebb and flow of the water surrounding him. Most herons are bluish in color unless they are juvenile herons that are mostly white with some darker wing feathers, which indicate their transition. There is white morph adult of the Great Blue Heron which is found in south Florida. The bird is larger than the Great Egret with a heavier bill and paler, yellow-gray legs.