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Frank’s prints are atypical in that she printed them in her own studio rather than with a workshop-publisher-master printmaker, which was the usual practice of contemporary artists during the post-World War II explosion of fine art printmaking. Working by herself explains her preference for monotypes over numbered editions or working in other print media, such as lithography or intaglio, which require more elaborate equipment.
To create Untitled (Running Figure), Frank rolled out black ink on a zinc or aluminum sheet. The surface was evenly coated with the relief ink. Then, she used stencils and torn strips of paper, also inked with a brayer, but in red ink. Some of these suggest body parts, i.e., the face in profile, breast, spine, and long sinuous arrows that appear as legs. It is likely that in this first inking of the plate, the artist placed the torn paper, red ink side up, on the black background and then “drew” more of the female runner by selectively wiping away the black ink background with a rag or finger in order to remove all ink from that area of the plate’s surface. At this point the plate was run through an etching press for the first impression, a high contrast image with black background, strong red elements and white marks where the ink was swiped off the plate. But Frank was just getting started. For the next impression, she carefully lifted up the inked pieces of paper to turn some over and put others back down on the plate, while shifting them from the original position. Most likely she did some more selective wiping, maybe with a rag, after spraying with solvent to create a painterly swipe on the plate. This second impression was then pulled. The background was now a dark gray, with areas of red that were less opaque than the first image but still strong, and there was the residual image in gray of the first placement of the paper pieces and the darkest gray from the paper pieces that had been turned over. “I love the possibility of having the past, present and future at the same time. In sculpture when you make a change you lose what you had before. Working in a series, you try to keep the image alive as long as possible, but all the work has to be done in one long session on one day, otherwise the ink will dry. Because of the time element I work in a kind of frenzy.” [2]
For a third impression Frank prepared the plate again. She may or may not have re-inked in red some of the paper forms and turned over two last arrow pieces to get the darker gray picked up from the black background. The plate by then had a very light coating of the black ink, which printed as light gray and revealed lap marks from the process of using the brayer for the initial inking of the background. The impression from the third time through the press resulted in the finished Untitled (Running Figure). Frank recounted, “when I make a series, there isn’t a logical progression from dark to light. By re-inking and wiping parts out, often the fourth print is dark again. There’s so much possibility of adding or subtracting, entrances and exits. Sometimes ‘ghosts’ (images that turn up again in paler versions after the first printing) disappear and then reappear unexpectedly later on. The process is an enormous layering of ways of working, or ideas and sudden violent shifts of feeling.” [3]
The motif of a figure surrounded by arrows is found in other work by Frank. Two that are most clearly related to this monoprint are her standing terra cotta sculpture Arrowed Woman, 1977, and a charcoal drawing, Walking Woman with Arrows, 1982. Frank explained, “I see the arrows as a lot of different things like directions, conflicts. Often they are air or water moving around a body. They come out in the works that are most disturbing. Originally I felt the arrows when I was watching waves move around rocks. I feel them in animals, too. The arrow is a beautiful form.” [4]
Frank has revealed that “the arrows in the five monoprints of walking women from 1979 or 1980 were connected to my feelings about Pablo”—a reference to her son who was diagnosed as having Hodgkin’s disease. A 1975 entry in Frank’s sketchbook indicates her grief and despair at the time. “Friday—what is it? Pablo has Hodgkin’s disease. He’s very sick. They will give no prognosis … What’s happening. Where is my life— … I keep on trying. Sisyphus—endlessly trying—hoping, wanting to believe—thinking I must have some powers …I feel hollowed out, carved out. Tried to work, old bones and old blood color—tearing the paper, working hard and fast but not able to let go—crying… This week is already years old.” [5]
Frank’s personal losses at this time are captured in the image of the arrow and may reference the Greek mythological figure Niobe who, along with her fourteen children, was shot with arrows after boasting about her offspring. Additionally, Frank’s arrow imagery needs to be seen in the context of her life as an artist. When asked “what is art for?” she responded: “to comfort the dead/to awaken the living/to delve into the past and run with it into the future/to experience others/to know of the migrations of animals, fish, and birds, and of peoples/to make community with ideas against injustice/to allow the eve to become a hand, a wing, a heart, that can respond to gestures, to colours, and to forms/for the joy of making and embracing life.” [6]
Notes:
[1] Hayden Herrera, Mary Frank (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1990), 101, and Frank quote in Hayden Herrera, Natural Histories: Mary Frank’s Sculpture, Prints and Drawings (Lincoln MA: De Cordova and Dana Museum and Park, 1988), 9.
[2] Frank quoted in Herrera, Natural Histories, 8.
[3] Frank quoted in Herrera, Natural Histories, 9.
[4] Frank quoted in Herrera, Mary Frank, 91.
[5] Frank quoted in Herrera, Mary Frank, 91 and 64.
[6] Frank quoted in Mary Frank: Experiences, exhibition catalogue (Richmond, VA: University of Richmond Museums, 2002), 21.
ProvenanceBefore 1980
Zabriskie Gallery, New York, NY. [1]
From 1980
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC, purchased from Zabriskie Gallery, New York, NY. [2]
Notes:
[1] Invoice, May 1, 1980, Object file.
[2] See Note 1.
Exhibition History2010
Looking At/Looking In: Bodies and Faces in Contemporary Art
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC (5/11/2010-8/8/2010)
Published References
DepartmentAmerican Art
Untitled (Running Figure)
Artist
Mary Frank
(born 1933)
Date1978
Mediummonoprint
DimensionsFrame: 42 1/2 x 30 in. (108 x 76.2 cm)
Paper: 38 x 25 7/8 in. (96.5 x 65.7 cm)
Image: 34 3/4 x 23 9/16 in. (88.3 x 59.8 cm)
SignedMary Frank 1978
Credit LineMuseum Purchase through grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and R.J. Reynolds Industries, Inc.
CopyrightCourtesy DC Moore Gallery
Object number1980.2.4
DescriptionMary Frank made her first monotype in 1967, not knowing that she had done so. She had made an oil painting on a glass surface which broke, so she placed a sheet of paper over the glass to transfer the painted image to its surface, which is the basic process for making a monotype. Since then she has continued to make monoprints, her preferred term for the printmaking process by which she creates individual images in a series pulled from an inked plate that has been reworked for each subsequent impression. “There is a lot of preparation and planning, but I change things in response to what I see happening on the plate.” [1]Frank’s prints are atypical in that she printed them in her own studio rather than with a workshop-publisher-master printmaker, which was the usual practice of contemporary artists during the post-World War II explosion of fine art printmaking. Working by herself explains her preference for monotypes over numbered editions or working in other print media, such as lithography or intaglio, which require more elaborate equipment.
To create Untitled (Running Figure), Frank rolled out black ink on a zinc or aluminum sheet. The surface was evenly coated with the relief ink. Then, she used stencils and torn strips of paper, also inked with a brayer, but in red ink. Some of these suggest body parts, i.e., the face in profile, breast, spine, and long sinuous arrows that appear as legs. It is likely that in this first inking of the plate, the artist placed the torn paper, red ink side up, on the black background and then “drew” more of the female runner by selectively wiping away the black ink background with a rag or finger in order to remove all ink from that area of the plate’s surface. At this point the plate was run through an etching press for the first impression, a high contrast image with black background, strong red elements and white marks where the ink was swiped off the plate. But Frank was just getting started. For the next impression, she carefully lifted up the inked pieces of paper to turn some over and put others back down on the plate, while shifting them from the original position. Most likely she did some more selective wiping, maybe with a rag, after spraying with solvent to create a painterly swipe on the plate. This second impression was then pulled. The background was now a dark gray, with areas of red that were less opaque than the first image but still strong, and there was the residual image in gray of the first placement of the paper pieces and the darkest gray from the paper pieces that had been turned over. “I love the possibility of having the past, present and future at the same time. In sculpture when you make a change you lose what you had before. Working in a series, you try to keep the image alive as long as possible, but all the work has to be done in one long session on one day, otherwise the ink will dry. Because of the time element I work in a kind of frenzy.” [2]
For a third impression Frank prepared the plate again. She may or may not have re-inked in red some of the paper forms and turned over two last arrow pieces to get the darker gray picked up from the black background. The plate by then had a very light coating of the black ink, which printed as light gray and revealed lap marks from the process of using the brayer for the initial inking of the background. The impression from the third time through the press resulted in the finished Untitled (Running Figure). Frank recounted, “when I make a series, there isn’t a logical progression from dark to light. By re-inking and wiping parts out, often the fourth print is dark again. There’s so much possibility of adding or subtracting, entrances and exits. Sometimes ‘ghosts’ (images that turn up again in paler versions after the first printing) disappear and then reappear unexpectedly later on. The process is an enormous layering of ways of working, or ideas and sudden violent shifts of feeling.” [3]
The motif of a figure surrounded by arrows is found in other work by Frank. Two that are most clearly related to this monoprint are her standing terra cotta sculpture Arrowed Woman, 1977, and a charcoal drawing, Walking Woman with Arrows, 1982. Frank explained, “I see the arrows as a lot of different things like directions, conflicts. Often they are air or water moving around a body. They come out in the works that are most disturbing. Originally I felt the arrows when I was watching waves move around rocks. I feel them in animals, too. The arrow is a beautiful form.” [4]
Frank has revealed that “the arrows in the five monoprints of walking women from 1979 or 1980 were connected to my feelings about Pablo”—a reference to her son who was diagnosed as having Hodgkin’s disease. A 1975 entry in Frank’s sketchbook indicates her grief and despair at the time. “Friday—what is it? Pablo has Hodgkin’s disease. He’s very sick. They will give no prognosis … What’s happening. Where is my life— … I keep on trying. Sisyphus—endlessly trying—hoping, wanting to believe—thinking I must have some powers …I feel hollowed out, carved out. Tried to work, old bones and old blood color—tearing the paper, working hard and fast but not able to let go—crying… This week is already years old.” [5]
Frank’s personal losses at this time are captured in the image of the arrow and may reference the Greek mythological figure Niobe who, along with her fourteen children, was shot with arrows after boasting about her offspring. Additionally, Frank’s arrow imagery needs to be seen in the context of her life as an artist. When asked “what is art for?” she responded: “to comfort the dead/to awaken the living/to delve into the past and run with it into the future/to experience others/to know of the migrations of animals, fish, and birds, and of peoples/to make community with ideas against injustice/to allow the eve to become a hand, a wing, a heart, that can respond to gestures, to colours, and to forms/for the joy of making and embracing life.” [6]
Notes:
[1] Hayden Herrera, Mary Frank (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1990), 101, and Frank quote in Hayden Herrera, Natural Histories: Mary Frank’s Sculpture, Prints and Drawings (Lincoln MA: De Cordova and Dana Museum and Park, 1988), 9.
[2] Frank quoted in Herrera, Natural Histories, 8.
[3] Frank quoted in Herrera, Natural Histories, 9.
[4] Frank quoted in Herrera, Mary Frank, 91.
[5] Frank quoted in Herrera, Mary Frank, 91 and 64.
[6] Frank quoted in Mary Frank: Experiences, exhibition catalogue (Richmond, VA: University of Richmond Museums, 2002), 21.
ProvenanceBefore 1980
Zabriskie Gallery, New York, NY. [1]
From 1980
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC, purchased from Zabriskie Gallery, New York, NY. [2]
Notes:
[1] Invoice, May 1, 1980, Object file.
[2] See Note 1.
Exhibition History2010
Looking At/Looking In: Bodies and Faces in Contemporary Art
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC (5/11/2010-8/8/2010)
Published References
Status
Not on viewCollections