(Dancer)

 

Ruth A. Wall

  1917 - 2009 (biography)

c. 1951  

color serigraph (screenprint) 

20-3/4 x x 12-1/4" image 

pencil signed, lower right margin 

1 of 3  

Annotated in lower margin: Artist Proof - Edition Finished - Complete". 

 

cream wove vellum 

 

artist 

23429 

$500.00 

The colorful, angular form of a dancer, every limb bent in an improbable pose, is framed by asymmetrical blocks of black, all set against a vibrating wood grain-like ochre in the background. This serigraph by Ruth Wall is at once playful and full of tension, and echoes the time and place it was created in: 1950s San Francisco, the backdrop of which was one of experimentation and shedding of conformist ideals and the emergence of the Bay Area resonses to Abstract Expressionism. Though known primarily as a lithographer, Wall also studied serigraphy while taking courses at the California School of Fine Arts on the G.I. Bill. An experimental abstract printmaker, she found her footing at a time when women were still dealing with expectations of tradition and femininity. She explored themes of representative and non-representative abstraction and frequently worked in lithography, which at that time was still considered a masculine medium, and she exhibited her work at unconventional places like the legendary 12 Adler Place, at that point a lesbian bar and gallery. She often worked at night when the studios at CSFA were abandoned, perhaps to grant herself the space to become fully immersed in her process. In the screenprint “Dancer” we see the abandonment of restraint, and the employment of pattern, color, and texture to create a sense of movement on the sheet - perhaps Wall’s reflection of self.