Yellow Canary

Guy Crittington Maccoy

Guy Crittington Maccoy is often referred to as one of the founders of artistic serigraphy, promoting the use of silkscreen - which until the late 1920s had been relegated to commercial works - as a fine art technique unto itself, as promoted in the WPA in the late 1930s.

Guy Maccoy was known for his intricate, detailed process whereby the inks, which sit on the surface of the paper rather than being pressed into the sheet, a la intaglio, are painstakingly separated by hue and texture, and applied in careful execution to achieve a painterly quality. His more complex works could employ more than 100 color runs to produce.

In the 1949 screenprint “Yellow Canary,” an otherwise simple composition in a limited palette is made more intriguing by the complexity of the layered inks, which create tonality and dimension. At play as well are early signs of Maccoy’s experimentation with Abstraction, and his love of birds, which are a recurring theme throughout his work.