Out of the Morning Dew

Eduard Buk Ulreich

Eduard "Buk" Ulreich's technique remains something of a mystery. In this work, which he's designated a "block painting" on the verso, he uses a variety of methods to acheive what looks like a lithograph from a distance. However, it appears he inked a woodblock using a gradiant color, a kind of "bokashi" technique, to overprint a sheet of paper with colors and textures. After it dried he proceeded to overlay the color using ink and graphite outlines to further define the dream-like animals, making them appear to emerge from the ephemeral morning air.

Eduard (BUK) Ulreich was born in Koszeg, Hungary / Austria on February 2, 1889, and moved with his family to New York as a child. He was a pupil of Mlle. Fannie Blumberg and studied at the Kansas City Art Institute and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Working as a mural designer for the WPA, he created frescos and mosaics and tapestries for buildings throughout the mid-West and East Coast during the late 1930s and 1940s.

Along with his wife, artist Nura Woodson Ulreich, he was an illustrator for books and magazines. Memberships included the Guild of Free Lance Artists. He exhibited widely including at the Art Institute of Chicago, Corcoran Gallery, Anderson Gallery, Whitney Museum of American Art and Gump's Gallery in San Francisco. Ulreich would sign his work "BUK", which is sometimes confused with American author and sometime arist Charles Bukowski, who also used "Buk" as a signature.

In 1950, after Nura's death, Buk married Virginia "Geni" MacFarland in New York. They left New York for San Francisco in October of 1954. During the 50s and 60s he exhibited extensively, including AAA in NY, Crespi, Ed Lesser's Gallerie du Quartier, Off the Square Gallery and many others.

Eduard "Buk" Ulreich died in San Francisco on July 17, 1966.