Sarah McMillan on the Reba W. & Dave H. Williams Collection of Color Woodcuts
“Collecting is a series of small victories, making discoveries, acquiring objects over time and learning their histories, and then sharing these objects and their stories with others of similar interests and enthusiasms.” — Dave H. Williams
Reba W. and Dave H. Williams began their collection in the mid-1970s and amassed one of the largest and most prestigious collections of American prints in the world. With over 5,000 works spanning from the late nineteenth through the twentieth centuries, the Williamses championed the history of printmaking in the United States. They were devoted to the study and promotion of the field, founding The Print Research Foundation in 2003 in Stamford, Connecticut, and organizing 18 exhibitions from their collection that traveled around the world. In 2009, they donated a large portion of their collection to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
The Williamses were introduced to the field of color woodcuts in 1983 when Reba, by chance, viewed Margaret Patterson’s Swans at an auction preview. Enthralled by the bright colors, this initial purchase opened a new area to them in the world of printmaking that they had not yet collected. The prints they acquired were by both known and previously undiscovered artists and focused particularly on the depiction of birds and florals.
(left) Edna Boies Hopkins, Violets and Phlox (Florals), color woodcut, circa 1909-13. Estimate $7,000 to $10,000.
As they started collecting, they learned all they could about the medium. The color woodcut movement in the United States started with Arthur Wesley Dow in the late nineteenth century when he discovered Ukiyo-e woodblock prints and became fascinated with them. He subsequently gave up most of his painting practice to dedicate himself to the production of color woodcuts and teaching woodcut techniques to others, educating many who became significant printmakers of the early twentieth century, including Margaret Patterson and Edna Boies Hopkins.
Their collection would grow to include around 300 color woodcuts, many of which were made by members of a group of printmakers in Provincetown, Massachusetts. World War I drove many artists who had been living in Europe back to the United States; several of them, including Patterson, Hopkins, Ethel Mars, and Blanche Lazzell, moved to the small town on Cape Cod. They developed a new way of printmaking—the white line woodcut—in which printmakers carved their designs onto a single block, rather than multiple blocks in the Western printmaking tradition, and inked each section with a different color. The small grooves between each segment created a distinctive white line between elements in the composition. Lazzell championed the white-line woodcut and was renowned for her devotion to the technique and for the sophistication of her work, as well as the influence of abstraction and Cubism.
The collection also included artists who settled in the West, such as Gustave Baumann and William Seltzer Rice. Baumann, who had lived for a period in Provincetown but did not utilize the white-line technique, settled in Taos, New Mexico, where he depicted many Western landscapes. He became one of the most well-known and desirable printmakers to use the technique. Rice was an artist who was relatively unknown when the Williamses were introduced to his work. Born in Pennsylvania, he moved to California in 1900, where he became associated with the Arts and Crafts movement and depicted the local flora and fauna. The Williamses eventually owned around 20 of his boldly colorful woodcuts.
Along with Rice, we can also thank the Williamses for rediscovering the work of Luigi Rist. In 1984, they were introduced to Rist’s woodcuts and were impressed with his technical expertise. Rist often used a large number of blocks to achieve a velvety tone uncommon in woodcuts. Largely unknown during his lifetime and without representation, his prints depicting flowers and food were not the style of the time. When the Williamses first started collecting his work, the available pieces were scarcely offered on the market. Reba researched his works, curating an exhibit of his woodcuts that was mounted at The Montclair Art Museum in New Jersey, and wrote and published a catalogue raisonné of his prints, bringing to light his expertise and developing his market.
It is a testament to their collecting approach that has brought Rist, as well as other artists who specialized in color woodcuts, to the forefront of scholarship and strengthened their markets. The Williamses appreciated finding artists whose work was unsung and unknown, and at the core of their collecting approach was a desire to share what they have learned and loved with other print enthusiasts. Dave Williams wrote in Small Victories, his memoir about collecting, that “Collecting is a series of small victories, making discoveries, acquiring objects over time and learning their histories, and then sharing these objects and their stories with others of similar interests and enthusiasms.” Swann is pleased to present selections from their collection for sale and to share these works with future collectors.
(right) Arthur Wesley Dow, Lily, color woodcut, 1898. Estimate $3,000 to $5,000.
Pictured here is Marvin Newma