Untitled (Hungry Ghosts VIII)

Lee Mullican

In 1964 Lee Mullican did a series of lithographs at Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles which evolved into 2 portfolios, "Fables", a suite of 12 lithographs, including a colophon and title page, and "Hungry Ghosts" also a suite of 12 lithographs, also including a colophon and title page. This image is number eight (VIII) from "Hungry Ghosts" and is a "Printer's Proof", an impression given to the Master Printer as partial payment. This work was printed with the Tamarind Master Printer Kenneth Tyler. The Tamarind printing record shows an edition of 20 plus the usual 9 Tamarind Impressions, 1 BAT , 1 Trial Proof, 1 Artist's Proof, 2 Printers Proofs for Ken Tyler, and 1 Cancellation Proof, for a total edition of 35 total impressions.

Lee Mullican, painter, printmaker, and teacher, was born in Chickasha, Oklahoma December 2, 1919. Before his induction into the U.S. Army in 1942, he studied art at Abilene Christian College, the University of Oklahoma, and the Kansas City Art Institute, where he studied with Fletcher Martin. Mullican stated that his initial sense of abstraction stemmed from his work as a topographical draftsman using aerial photography and mapping techniques during World War II. At the invitation of printer Jack Stauffacher, Mullican moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1946.

He met Gordon Onslow Ford, Wolfgang Paalan, Jacqueline Johnson, and Luchita Huardo, his future bride, and he studied printmaking with Stanley William Hayter at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco. Onslow Ford, Paalan and Mullican formed the Dynaton group which proved highly influential despite its short life span. The group had disbanded by 1951 when the celebrated Dynaton exhibition was mounted at the San Francisco Museum of Art. When the Los Angeles County Museum of Art presented the exhibition Dynaton Revisited in 1977, it called the Dynaton movement "a Bay Area alternative to the New York School of 1950."

Mullican's printmaking is discussed in detail on page 92 in The Stamp of Impulse, Abstract Expressionist Prints by David Acton, Worcester Art Museum, 2001. Lee Mullican had numerous solo exhibitions and his work is represented in the collections throughout the U.S. Mullican died in Santa Monica, California on July 7, 1998.