Snowfields by Roi George Partridge

Snowfields by Roi George Partridge

Snowfields

Roi George Partridge

Please call us at 707-546-7352 or email artannex@aol.com to purchase this item.
Title

Snowfields

 
Artist
Year
1927  
Technique
etching 
Image Size
14 7/8 x 11 7/8" platemark 
Signature
pencil, lower center; within plate, lower left. 
Edition Size
65 plus 5 trial proofs; one printed in 1980 
Annotations
dated & signed in plate 
Reference
White 182 
Paper
white laid with partial watermark 
State
i/i (plus 5 trial proofs) 
Publisher
artist 
Inventory ID
PMJ124 
Price
$1,500.00 
Description

Roi Partridge did this large landscape of the mountains about 50 miles north of Bellingham, Washington, near the Canadian border in 1927. Partridge uses his signature line work to create the rocks in the foreground and the faces of the snow-capped mountains of the Cascades.

"Snowfields" was exhibited and illustrated extensively throughout the 1930s and 40s. There was one proof printed by Kay Bradner at Mills College in Oakland, California in 1980, annotated so by Partridge on the print. The plate was canceled at Mills.

Roy (Roi) Partridge was born and raised in Washington, before it became a state, and its mountain ranges remained an inspiration to him throughout his whole career.

Roi Partridge was born Roy George Partridge in Centralia, Territory of Washington. In 1905 his family moved to Kansas City, Missouri where Partridge eventually enrolled in the Fine Art Institute. The return of his family to the Northwest in 1908 proved fortuitous as the following year the Seattle Public Library held a survey exhibition of graphic arts which included prints by old masters as well as Whistler, Haden, Pennell and B.J.O. Nordfeldt. It was a seminal exhibition for Partridge and he left for New York to study for a year at the National Academy of Design.

 

In 1910 he sailed for Europe, eventually settling for most of the year in Munich followed by three years in France, during which he changed his name from Roy to Roi. Partridge, unable to afford the academies, was primarily self-taught as an etcher but he was fortunate to find a mentor in Paris with the Chicago based printmaker/curator Bertha Jaques who promoted his work. It was through her efforts that his etchings were exhibited with the Chicago Society of Etchers. Like so many other American artists in Paris in 1914, Partridge booked passage home. He returned to the Northwest where he wooed and wed the photographer Imogen Cunningham, and they resettled in San Francisco in 1917. Partridge began teaching at Mills College in 1920; he was named professor in 1922 and later served as the first director of the Mills College Art Gallery.

His marriage to Imogen Cunningham in 1915 ended in divorce in 1934. They had three sons, including photographer Rondal Partridge. His second wife, artist Marion Lyman, died of cancer in 1940; his third wife was May Ellen Fisher. Partridge took a leave of absence from Mills in 1946, continued etching until 1952, and retired in 1954.

Roi George Partridge died in Walnut Creek, California on January 25, 1984.

 

Please call us at 707-546-7352 or email artannex@aol.com to purchase this item.