Antipodes

Michael Ponce de Leon

Michael Ponce de León discussed his techniques on pages 334-36 of Fritz Eichenberg's "The Art of the Print - Masterpieces, History, Techniques" ISBN: 0-8109-0103-X.

"I usually start with a model, a miniature collage construction made of cardboard. This limitation compels me to strip the project of all the nonessentials. Most of my work is the result of seveal ideas in conflict, of the search for a resolution of contradictions. My metal constructions are a complex of many raised and depressed metal motifs, some soldered, others free, but all fittled together like a jigsaw puzzle. My materials, aside from 'objets trouvés', are zinc, bonze, steel, and corroded tin cans. Each metal has its particular chemical properties and reacts to acids, hammers, and other tools in a unique way. The same could be said of the manner in which it accepts color inks and pinting papers.

Some of mysurfaces and hammered and modeled into ochestrations of concavities and convexites. The concavities on the back are always filled in with aluminum solder so as to retain their shape throughout the printing. Objects too soft for printing are cast in metal...

To print from my high plates I had to design a new type of hydraulic press that stamps with 10,000 pounds of pressure..."

On the bottom verso of this jewel-toned collagraph there has been mounted a piece of handmade, fibrous wove paper. It appears de Leon placed it there to add extra support to the deep embossment in the lower half of the composition. This helps illustrate the immense pressure he required to obtain the sharp, highly detailed shapes resembling fossiles in an ancient sea bed.

The word "antipode" refers to the parts of the earth that are diametrically opposite. In geography, a good example of this phenomenon is New Zealand, which has the most antipodal connections (twelve), including parts of Spain, France, and Morocco. The word's Latin root means "men that have their feet against our feet" - that is, inhabitants of the opposite side of the globe. While this original meaning has fallen out of use in the social sense, "antipode" remains part of the lexicon of geographic sciences.

Michael Ponce de Leon, painter, printmaker, cartoonist, and educator, was born to Manuel and Joan (Cobos) Ponce de Leon in Miami, Florida on 4 July 1922. He grew up in Mexico City where he studied architecture at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and received his B.A. from the University of Mexico City. After serving in the United State Army Air Force during World Ward II, he moved to New York where he studied at the National Academy of Design, the Art Students League, and the School of the Brooklyn Museum.

He was a member of the Society of American Graphic Artists and served as treasurer of the organization in 1968 and was also a member of the Association of American University Professors. Ponce de Leon taught at Vassar College, 1953; Pratt Graphic Art Center, 1957-1971; Cooper Union, 1962-1967; Hunter College, 1959-1966; Art Students League, 1966-1986; California State College, 1969; Hayward State College, 1970; Columbia University, 1972; and New York University, 1976-1977.

Michael Ponce de Leon died in Mexico on January 23, 2006.