The Yellow Boy (aka: Chinese Girl)

Helen Hyde

Helen Hyde began her printmaking career as an etcher in 1896 before turning to color woodcut in 1900. This image is one of a group of 21 color etchings she did over a period of four years that featured women and children, inspired by San Francisco's Chinatown. She was able to sell these through the Vickery Gallery in San Francisco and Macbeath Gallery in New York. She continued to sporadically use the intaglio media throughout her career, returning to it completely again in 1915 until her death in 1919.

Hyde colored her etchings "a la poupée", coloring the single plate for each impression by hand using a cotton swab, or hand coloring after printing the black linear plate. Colors can vary dramatically from impression to impression.

Hyde returned to Asia in 1902, traveling to China and then to Tokyo, where she met Arthur Dow and began to focus on color blockprints. She sailed back to San Francisco in 1905. With war threatening she returned to the US and mounted a series of international exhibitions which had a great success and helped cement her reputation.