Ritual at 5 (a.k.a. Le Sacre sans Merci) by Barbara Olmsted

Ritual at 5 (a.k.a. Le Sacre sans Merci) by Barbara Olmsted

Ritual at 5 (a.k.a. Le Sacre sans Merci)

Barbara Olmsted

Title

Ritual at 5 (a.k.a. Le Sacre sans Merci)

 
Artist
Year
1937  
Technique
etching and engraving 
Image Size
7 3/4 x 5 7/8" platemark 
Signature
pencil, lower right 
Edition Size
4 of 6  
Annotations
titled, dated and editioned in pencil 
Reference
1938 San Francisco Art Association Exhibition catalogue #147 (full page illustration); prize winner for etching 
Paper
antique-white, laid Montval 
State
published 
Publisher
artist, at Atelier 17, Paris 
Inventory ID
16212 
Price
SOLD
Description

Ritual at 5", which was exhibited in San Francisco in 1938 as "Sacre sans Merci", was illustrated as a prize winner. This impression is also illustrated in "California Society of Printmakers - One Hundred Years 1913-2013," page 12.

Barbara and her husband Frederick Olmsted were classmates of Helen Phillips in California and were two of a number of American printmakers who were instrumental in the early formation of Atelier 17 in Paris in the late 1920s and 1930s.

Olmsted's work was represented in the important 1944 exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art in New York titled Hayter and Studio 17 which included 60 prints by 32 artists from 12 nations: https://www.moma.org/…/MOMA_1944_0035_1944-06-16_44616-27.p…

The two linear figures are both transparent and dimensional, seated in a surreal room. Olmsted searches for other dimensions using an automatic line with the composition that resembles an Alexander Calder wire sculpture.

Using a Surrealist perspective accompanied by odd shapes and linear patterns that float, Olmsted creates a curious back and forth movement that keep the whole composition in a Surreal balance.

This impression was in the collection of fellow Atelier 17 artist, Cathal Brendan O'Toole: http://www.annexgalleries.com/…/biograp…/1765/O'Toole/Cathal