Lament for a Piper

Harry Hoehn

This late '50s intaglio print shows the influence of Atelier 17 in the striking movement and physicality achieved on the plate, utilizing the Surrealist "automatic line" ethos adopted by Hayter when he re-opened the workshop in New York in 1940. Hoehn uses an acid yellow to illuminate the bold, dark linework and texture of the composition, which is dominated by the use of aquatint brushed on in a gestural, nearly calligraphic manner, as with sumi ink, across the surface of the matrix.

The 1950s was a pivotal time in the printmaking career of Harry Hoehn. Prior to and during the Second World War, Hoehn had focused on commerical art, but by the time he returned from serving overseas his interest had turned to Abstract Expressionism. He studied at Stanley William Hayer's famed experimental printmaking workshop Atelier 17 in New York in 1951, after Hayter returned to Paris, he was one of its many co-directors along with the artist Terry Haass. In 1953 he was included in the seminal exhibition Young American Printmakers at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, along with other leading Abstract Expressionist printmakers of the time.

Harry Joseph Hoehn, painter, printmaker, designer, teacher, and author, was born September 30, 1918 in New York to Harry F. and Margaret Hoehn. He studied at the San Miguel University in Culiacán, Sinoloa, Mexico; and the Art Students League and Atelier 17 in New York. According to his World War II draft card, Hoehn was working for Dispatch News Features in 1940, with his occupation noted as a commercial artist with two years of college education. He served in the military between 1942 and 1945.

Hoehn co-directed the New York location of Stanley William Hayter's experimental printmaking workshop, Atelier 17, with artist Terry Haass In the spring and summer of 1951. In spring of 1953, Hoehn was included in the annual exhibition Sculpture / Watercolors / Drawings at the Whitney Museum.

In 1968, Hoehn helped print a small edition (around 25) of impressions from the copper plates of William Blake which were illustrations for Dante’s Divine Comedy. These were printed for Lessing J. Rosenwald at the suggestion of Ruthven Todd.

According to February 1972 issue of Craft Horizons, Hoehn was one of ten artists in residence at the International Artists Symposium sponsored by the Republic of Austria in Eisenstadt during the summer of 1970. One of the paintings he completed while there is now in the Austrian National Collection of Contemporary Painting. For this issue of Crafts Horizons, Hoehn authored the article, “Workshop: A New Planographic Printmaking Process.”

Harry Joseph Hoehn died in East Farmingdale, New York, in 1974 on his birthday.