Luncheon on the Porch

David Fraiser Driesbach

David Driesbach studied printmaking with Mauricio Lasansky at Iowa between 1948 and 1951, getting both his BFA and his MFA there. He also spent two stints at Stanley William Hayter's Atelier 17, once after he was discharged from the marines in 1945, and once in Paris, in 1969.

Driesbach almost always included a self portrait in his compositions, usually in a stove-pipe hat, often with self deprecating humor, always the observer of the human condition. He combines a surreal landscape and various intaglio techniques to create a dream-like fantasy composition in which he included four self-portraits: the man fishing, the man in the bent-wood rocking chair having lunch, a man in a row-boat, and a quizzical man with a wagon. Across the bridge over the river a traveling circus seems to have set up and perspective becomes even more confusing.

Driesbach commented on his imagery: "My work is autobiographical. It is about my present and my past - awake and in dreams. My compulsion is to relive events, whether they be mundane, hilarious, frightening, curious, or beautifully fascinating. These images I view as happenings, plays, or stories with unique settings, times and plots."'>