September in Roosevelt Park

Gordon Louis Mortensen

An overview of the landscape in Theodore Roosevelt National Park, located in western North Dakota at the edge of the Badlands. The park is known for the 'Painted Canyon'. This is perhaps a view from the Boicourt Overlook Trail in the month of September.

Gordon Mortensen commented on the process he uses: "Only one woodblock is used. On it an image is drawn in India ink. Before the first color is printed, any areas that are to remain unprinted (white or the color of the paper) are cut away from the surface of the block. Then an oil base ink is used to print the first color on all of the sheets of paper that are to be used for the edition and proofs. After the first printing the block is again cut, removing any surface of the block that is to remain the first color in the finished print. After each subsequent color is printed, the block is cut, the process continues until the print is finished and most of the surface of the block is cut away."

Born near Arnegard, North Dakota on April 27, 1938, Gordon Mortensen received his BFA degree with Honors in 1964 from the Minneapolis School of Art (now the Minneapolis College of Art and Design) and he was enrolled in the graduate program at the University of Minnesota in St. Paul between 1969 and 1972. Originally a portrait painter, Mortensen almost entirely abandoned that media for reduction woodcutting, achieving the creative freedom he desired. He is one of the few practicing artists of this method in the United States. During this transitional time, he taught briefly at the Saint Paul Art Museum, the Rochester Art Center, and the Minnetonka Art Center in Wayzata.

Early in his printmaking career, Mortensen circulated his color woodcuts via exhibitions in the Midwest. His work reached a wider audience in 1976 when he participated in the Brooklyn Museum National Print Exhibition and the following year he joined the Boston Printmakers.