Locust

 

Walter R. Rogalski

  1925 - 1996 (biography)

1954  

engraving 

9 x 12" 3/4" platemark 

pencil, lower right 

250 plus 10 proofs 

stamp on verso: "The Print Club of Cleveland" 

The Print Club of Cleveland publication 32 for 1954; Cleveland Museum of Art exhibition catalog 31, 1954 and Library of Congress 3. 

antique-white laid "Homer" (about 35 on "Ruysdael" wove. 

published 

Print Club of Cleveland, Ohio 

20332 

SOLD

The newly emerged locust leaves it shell on the tree. The composition could be a science fiction image, a surreal nightmare or a crisply abstracted natural phenomenon.

"Locust" was The Print Club of Cleveland publication number 32 for 1954 and is listed in the Print Club catalogue raisonné as number 32 (illustrated on page 82). It was printed in a regular edition of 250 plus 10 proofs on "Homer" laid paper and 35 proofs on "Ruysdael" paper.

The image was exhibited in the Cleveland Museum of Art show "Prints and Drawings by Walter R. Rogalski", November 2 through December 5, 1954. In the exhbition catatlog curator Louise S. Richards commented:

"In the Print Club publication "Locust," the eye is first attracted to the labyrinthine complexity of the locust's shell at the right, with its fanciful curve-ribbed wings. Then soaring upward into the light toward the left appears the liberated insect. Its sleek body, fragile wings, and thread-like antennae, drawn in taut straight lines, contrast with the graceful but essentially static structure of the abandoned shell."