Richard the Opossum

Paul Hambleton Landacre

A disarmingly sweet image of one of nature's most misunderstood creatures, Paul Landacre captures a North American opossum surveying its stash of fruit. His signature black ink-heavy composition and steady, regular linework lends an elegance to an otherwise ordinary scene featuring the marsupial, a persimmon, and a bunch of grapes, one lone orb having escaped.

Opossums - or, simply "possums" - are the only marsupials found north of Mexico. Outside of mating, these nocturnal creatures are usually solitary. Their teeth allow them to eat many different types of food, usually found on the ground, and their ability to digest almost anything edible gives them a broader range than humans. Landacre portrays this opossum as if he is a recurrent, yet welcomed, visitor. Landacre loved nature, making the animal world a rich selection of worthy subjects. His imagery included, but was not limited to, the chipmunk, seal, horse, pelican, roadrunner, snake, bat, penguin, owl, swordfish, boar, house cat, and even the dinosaur and wooly mammoth—all refined in his unique style.

Paul Landacre was born in July 1893 in Columbus, Ohio and attended Ohio State University until he was suddenly crippled by a debilitating illness. In 1916, he moved to Chula Vista, California to convalesce and he found solace in drawing the landscape and purchased his first linoleum blocks. He moved to Los Angeles in 1922 to attend classes at the Otis Art Institute. Woodengraving was not part of the curriculum so he was self-taught. He worked as a commercial illustrator, married Margaret McCreery in 1925, and devoted himself to woodengraving in 1926.

He taught at the University of Southern California, the Otis Art Institute and the Kahn Institute and was a member of and exhibited with the California Society of Etchers, the California Print Makers Society, the American Society of Wood Engravers, and the American Society of Etchers. Landacre became the pre-eminent American woodengraver, an honor bestowed by Rockwell Kent and Carl Zigrosser. His mastery of the medium led to his election to the National Academy of Design in 1946. Landacre illustrated award winning books of poems and his first solo book, California Hills and other Woodengravings of 1931 won Fifty Books of the Year.