Floating Island by Seong Moy

Floating Island by Seong Moy

Floating Island

Seong Moy

Title

Floating Island

 
Artist

Seong Moy

  1921 - 2013 (biography)
Year
1966 , published by IGAS in 1967 
Technique
color woodcut, printed in 8 colors. 
Image Size
9 3/8 x 33 1/2" image 
Signature
pencil signed, lower right 
Edition Size
AE 5/19 (Artist's Edition, outside published edition of 200) 
Annotations
pencil titled, lower left 
Reference
Syracuse 61; IGAS series 75, Sept. 1967; Smithsonian #1969.35.13. 
Paper
antique-white laid Japanese 
State
proof 
Publisher
International Graphic Arts Society (IGAS) 
Inventory ID
18839 
Price
SOLD
Description

"Floating Island" is a relief blockprint, a color woodcut, done in 1966. The image measures 9-3/8 x 33-1/2". This impression is pencil signed, titled and editioned "AE 5/19" by the artist in the margin. This woodcut was published in an editon of 200 impressions by the International Graphic Arts Society (IGAS) and printed by the artist and assistants on an antique-white laid Japanese paper that measures 12-3/4 x 36-1/2". References for this image include Syracuse 61 and the Smithsonian American Art Museum #1969.35.13.

This intaglio by Seong Moy is available from the gallery for $1,500.00

Chinese born Seong Moy's family emigrated to Minnesota in 1931, when he was 10. He worked in the WPA and then studied with both Hans Hofman at his school and at the Art Students League with Vaclav Vytlacil in 1941 and then S.W. Hayter at Atelier 17 in New York between 1948 and 1950.

Moy's work, even using color woodcut, used a combination of abstracted Surrealism and gestural Abstract Expressionism. Though abstract in its composition, Moy drew on the calligraphic imagery of the Chinese language and references to the natural world.

"Floating Island" was done using a long, horizontal format almost 3 feet wide. An abstracted city with flashes of color appears to float in a green sea. Moy used the active grain of the background woodblock to simulate the movement of the water and impart a sense of movement to the composition.

This impression was from an Artist's Edition of 19, apart from the edition of 200 published by the International Graphic Arts Society (IGAS).