American Arts & Crafts Woodblocks

Featuring a vibrant selection of color woodblock prints from the collection of the Two Red Roses Foundation, American Arts and Crafts Woodblocks includes master artists such as Gustave Baumann, Eliza Draper Gardiner, Frances Gearhart, Edna Boies Hopkins, BJO Nordfeldt, Margaret Jordan Patterson, and many more. American Arts and Crafts Woodblocks tells the story of how artists of the late 19th and early 20th century experimented with this medium to make unique and personal interpretations of this technique.​

In the late 19th century, the popularity of Japanese art in Western culture merged with the heightened interest in craftsmanship promoted by the Arts & Crafts reform movement, resulting in the broad acceptance and popularity of the color woodcut in America. This ancient art offered artists from the period the opportunity to express themselves through the creation and design of beautiful, colorful and original art at prices that were affordable for homeowners and collectors.

American Arts and Crafts Woodblocks is accompanied by a complete catalog of the woodblock print collection Color Woodblock Prints from the Collection of the Two Red Roses Foundation, which provides a scholarly interpretation of this important art form. The book takes an exhaustive look into the extraordinary history of print making tracing back to its earliest roots. With detailed descriptions and hundreds of high-definition color prints, fascinating biographies, extended essays, and comprehensive explanations of the painstaking technical process involved in creating multi-colored woodcuts.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website