Arkhaios XVI

Doris Seidler

"Arkhaios XVI" is from a series of works Doris Seidler did in the 1960s. The word is of Greek origin and means 'ancient' or 'primeval', pertaining to the beginning of the world.

Doris Seidler was one of a number of printmakers, many of whom were women, that worked at Hayter's Atelier 17 in New York, a workshop devoted to intaglio experimentation at all levels. One of the techniques she experimented with was using acid on copper to eat away the plate and create a dimensional, tonal surface which she printed using both relief and intaglio methods. The overall effect is like incised Egyptian hieroglyphics, emerging from a solid background.

The following is excerpted from page 213 of Editions Alecto: Original graphics, multiple originals 1960-1981: "Arkhaios Series – Variations on a Theme of Antiquity [consisted of] eight relief prints, plus one lithograph, from the series of eighteen numbered in Roman numerals indicating the order in which they were done. Proofed by the artist in Great Neck studio, New York and printed by Sergio Gonzalez-Tornero, New York."

The artist described the theme as being "prompted by my love of ancient all surfaces, steles, ruins, all the marvelous textural things that one finds on ones travels – mine from Mexico to Greece, and points in between….Mr. Cornwall-Jones selected the pieces—no doubt with thoughts of saleability in mind. They had previously put on an exhibition in their London gallery of the complete series….” (DS, 3/12/1998).

Seidler was born Doris Falkoff in London, England in 1912. Little is recorded of her early life but it's known that her father owned a leather goods shop in London’s West End. In her early twenties, Doris married Bernard Seidler, an international fur broker, and they lived in London for the first few years of their marriage. With the French and English defeat at Dunkirk, England was in peril of invasion from Germany and Bernard made the decision to emigate to the United States and move the family out of the country. Bernard, Doris, and their son, future playwright (The King's Speach) David Seidler, sailed for New York in 1940.

By this time Doris Seidler was an amateur artist, seemingly self-taught. While Bernard continued to work as a fur broker, Doris’ world widened with her discovery of Hayter’s Atelier 17. Stanley William Hayter, also an evacuee from war-torn Europe, moved his famed Atelier 17 from Paris to the New School in New York and Doris worked there as a student, learning the techniques of printmaking. The Seidler family returned to England in 1945 to find their homeland devasted by bombing, and life for Londoners depressed. The stark landscape moved Seidler to record her observations; among the works produced at this depicted the heavily damaged Coventry Cathedral, a 1951 lucite engraving titled 'Blitzed Gothic'. After three years in England, the Seidlers immigrated to New York.

Doris resumed her work at Atelier 17 until Hayter closed its doors in 1950 and returned to Paris. She eventually had studios in Manhattan and Great Neck, New York, and worked in the intaglio processes as well as woodcut, lucite engraving, paper collage and collagraph. Doris Seidler, witty and charming, was creating and promoting her work well into her nineties. She passed away in New York at age 97 on 20 October 2010.