Return to Portland

Byron McClintock

"Return to Portland" is a mezzotint with roulette, printed in 2004 using three colors in an edition of 12 variant impressions.

Oregon born and now Portland resident, printmaker/painter Byron McClintock was an important part of the abstract expressionist movement in San Francisco in the 1950s. His printmaking was re-discovered in the early 1990's by New York AbEx print collector Charles Dean. Byron began working in printmaking again, this time using color mezzotint, roulette and drypoint.

The Whitney Museum purchased a few of his prints and hung them in a "Recent Acquisitions" exhibition. At Dean's urging McClintock traveled from Portland, Oregon to New York in 2004 to see his work hanging at the Whitney, his first trip to New York.

"Return to Portland" was done as a response to his return home from the East Coast. It is not literal, but is an emotional rather than a verbal response, a moment captured in a burst of bright color, tensely suspended in the center of the composition.