Indian Shell Midden (from The Gulf of California portfolio)

Edgar Dorsey Taylor

Edgar Dorsey Taylor did four portfolios of woodcuts between 1959 and 1969, all in small editions. This woodcut is from the first portfolio, title "The Gulf of California", printed in an edition of 25, plus a few artist's proofs. The location was in the Baja, California in Mexico.

They were printed in his studio by Taylor on handmade Hosho paper. There was a 1961 exhibition of Taylor's woodcuts at the Marion Koogler McNay Art Institute in San Antonio, Texas, March 12 through April 15.

Shell middens, or shellmounds, are “kitchen” refuse piles that offer insight into the daily lives of Indigenous peoples and the condition of lands they stewarded. In California, where Edgar Dorsey Taylor created this woodcut, shellmounds are an aspect of increasing archeological importance - albeit threatened by development - throughout the state. This is particularly true along coast lines as they are among the most accurate records of the sea and plant life that thrived in the areas where the mounds are found, prior to colonization.

Taylor’s choice of subject matter is unusual but intriguing. He has honed in on the details: fragments of shell and bone, a bare-branched tree in the background, the Pacific horizon just beyond. Something that might otherwise be overlooked or dismissed by many artists as simply a refuse pile has become something worthy of consideration to Taylor, who, perhaps coincidentally, exposed those ancient ways of life that helped form California into what it is today.

California born Edgar Dorsey Taylor had studied in Munich with Hans Hoffman in the late 1920s before returning to the U.S. to teach. Taylor's interest in German Expressionism is evident in his bold compositions.