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Ducks and Hollyhocks by Jessie Arms Botke

Ducks and Hollyhocks by Jessie Arms Botke

Ducks and Hollyhocks

Jessie Arms Botke

Title

Ducks and Hollyhocks

 
Artist

Jessie Arms Botke

  1883 - 1971 (biography)
Year
c. 1930  
Technique
color blockprint 
Image Size
9 1/4 x 10 1/2" image size 
Signature
pencil signed "Jessie Arms Botke" in lower right 
Edition Size
not stated 
Annotations
titled in pencil, lower left; annotated: "To Sarah and Missy with the love of the Botkes and Annie" in lower right, underneath signature; "Botke prints" in lower center 
Reference
 
Paper
fibrous, antique-white Imperial Japanese laid 
State
published 
Publisher
The Botkes 
Inventory ID
CHGA101 
Price
SOLD
Description

Jessie Arms and her husband, printmaker Cornelis Botke, printed the color blockprints together and would annotate them "Botke Prints" as this is. This impression is dedicated by Jessie Botke "To Sarah and Missy with the love of the Botkes and Annie."

Jessie Arms Botke is noted for her imagery of birds in painting, as well as color block-prints. "Ducks and Hollyhocks" was created after one of her paintings with similar imagery. This rural garden was probably the artist's garden in Santa Paula, California. This rare, intricate color block-print features three ducks in a field of flowers, including hollyhocks.

A native of Chicago, Jessie Arms Botke was a painter, decorator, designer and printmaker who specialized in birds and landscapes. She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and then traveled Europe for a time before returning to New York where she found a job at Herter Looms. While on the staff she designed a series of tapestries for the McAlpine Hotel in New York and helped paint murals for the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. Other commissions included a peacock frieze for the Billie Burke house and panels for the EI Mirasol Hotel in Santa Barbara, California.

Jessie Arms married artist Cornelis Botke and in 1919 they moved to California, first to Carmel and in 1927 they moved to Santa Paula, where British printmaker Frank Morley Fletcher had been hired to teach color printmaking in 1923 at the School of the Arts in nearby Santa Barbara. Jessie and Cornelis collaborated on a number of their color block-prints in the Arts and Crafts style, signing them "Botke Prints".