The Omen

Harold Persico Paris

A scarce early abstract lithograph with figurative elements by printmaker Harold Persico Paris, done in 1952 at the Robert Blackburn Studios in New York, with the studio blindstamp in the lower left corner of the margin. It was printed in a small edition of 17 by the artist, under Blackburn's supervision.

In 1952, Harold Paris also began the preliminary drawings for what would eventually become a suite of prints entitled "Hosannah". The project was originally titled "Eternal Judgment", and Paris was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for it in 1953. It wasn't until 1958 that the first version of the suite was completed in Nancy, France and exhibited at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Paris made a total of five suites, completing the final version, known as the Portland Suite, in 1971. Though not a part of the suite "The Omen" portends the ambitious project beguan the same year.

Paris noted about the symbolic images in the portfolio: "'Hosannah' is a reflection of the Mystic Forces that move us and have moved me in my Life. I believe in the Images that are presented here. Their reality and humaness are an integral part of all the World as I know it." The images in the portfolio brings to mind the works of Bruegel, Goya, Redon, and Rouault.

The 'Hosannah Suite' is epical or legendary in its design, and Portland Art Museum curator Gordon Gilkey wrote: "Paris has identified four guiding themes for its creation: Angelic War, Trial of Man, Fall and Submergence, and Hosannah. The word Hosannah is defined as a word of praise or adoration, especially in Judaic and Christian use. This should not confuse the reader into thinking that Hosannah is a religious work. It is spiritual and secular, and the ideas and emotions that are expressed by the images are both universal and very personal, relating feelings of anxiety, despair, anguish, and misery."

Both Blackburn and Paris had worked at Atelier 17 in New York and Blackburn used many of the Atelier's organizational concepts when opening his "Printmaking Workshop" in New York in 1947. When it first opened, the workshop's program included evening classes, an open studio working area, and print shops where artists could carry out their own experimentation in lithography.