Fables

Dennis Ray Beall

Fables is one from a group of Abstract Expressionist color lithographs Beall created between 1955 and 1958 while he was a graduate student at San Francisco State College. He had learned the basics of lithography from Duayne Hatchell while a student at Oklahoma City University in 1950. Braced with the knowledge gleaned from manuals by Bolton Brown and Lynton Kistler and the support of his teacher at SFSC, John Ihle, Beall developed his techniques for working the stone which resulted in seemingly spontaneous, gestural drawing. Beall described the process in 1963 in an exhibition catalogue for a show of works by George Miyasaki at the Achenbach Foundation: By using a strong solution of acetic acid between drawings, the stone may be re-sensitized without regrinding. Areas of the preceding drawing may be retained, other areas scrubbed or scraped, new design elements introduced, old ones reinforced and, in general, the reconciliation of design and color development more cohesively obtained and controlled...The enormous freedom implied by this system lies in its directness. The communication between the artist and his materials, the successive acts of printing, drawing, scrubbing, and correcting create a continuum which cannot be duplicated in the traditional workshop.