Plains Summer

 

Helen M. Seegert

  1907 - 1975 (biography)

1936  

color woodcut 

10 x 8" image size 

unsigned 

not stated 

(annotations were erased) 

Newark WPA 3; FAP #D-446-18 

soft, fibrous cream wove 

published 

Federal Arts Project 

17428 

SOLD

This Helen Seegert color woodcut of goats, grazing in a desert landscape has a very “British” aesthetic, bringing to mind the woodcuts of Mabel Royds, who had studied with Fletcher at the Edinburgh College of Art. Helen Seegert, born in 1907, was one of a number of color woodcut artists working in Santa Barbara in the early 20th century. She was listed as a sculptor in the New Deal Registry and did a bas relief sculpture at the La Purisima Mission in Lompoc, CA. She probably studied tin Santa Barabara with Frank Morley Fletcher and did this woodcut for the California WPA in 1936. Though the pencil title is visible, the signature has been rubbed away. It was not uncommon for artists to do to get rid of the WPA stamp after the end of the project in order to distance themselves from the time. Seegart died in 1975.