Bert's Iris

 

William Seltzer Rice

  1873 - 1963 (biography)

c. 1920  

color woodcut 

12 1/8 x 9 1/8" image size 

pencil, lower right 

fewer than 12 

titled in pencil in lower left 

illustrated on page 159, as well as the back of the dust jacket, in Ellen Treseder Sexauer's book, William S. Rice: Art & Life; This impression is illustrated in "California Society of Printmakers-One Hundred Years 1913-2013," page 6 and with a full page  

soft laid Japanese 

published 

artist 

PMJ323 

SOLD

Bert's Iris is a dramatic floral with delicate petals offset and outlined against a stark black background. This is a very painterly woodcut as the artist painted his colors onto his blocks rather than applying the colors evenly with a roller. Rice's handiwork allowed him to control the opacity of the colors and gave the woodcut the sensibility of being hand-colored. This impression is illustrated in "California Society of Printmakers - One Hundred Years 1913-2013," on page 6 and again with a full page illustration on page 2.