Untitled abstraction

Roland Petersen

This abstract, surreal intaglio was accomplished using a number of techniques, the patterns achieved by pressing fabrics into the soft-ground, etched and engraved sinuous lines with selective wiping. The undersea-like figures move in and out of the composition in a linear, balanced visual ballet.

For six months between the years 1950 and 1951 Roland Petersen traveled to Paris to study for the first time with Stanley William Hayter at Atelier 17 (he would return to the workshop in 1963, '70, and '71). He also studied at the Islingtin Studio and the Print Workshop in London. The works that emerged from this time left an indelible mark on Petersen's ensuing oeuvre, and until his final days the hallmarks of his visual style could be found even in his work associated with the Bay Area Figurative Movement. This untitled abstraction is a reflection of the San Francisco Bay Area as it rose in the ranks of artistic influence and change.

Roland Conrad Petersen, painter, printmaker, and educator, was born 31 March 1926 in Endelave, Denmark to American parents. He attended the University of California Berkeley studying under Chiura Obata and Glen Wessels. Petersen earned his B.A. degree in 1949 and his M.A. degree in 1950. He then headed east to study at the Hans Hoffman School of Fine Arts in Provincetown, Massachusetts. After returning to California, he studied at the California College of Arts and Crafts (now the California College of the Arts) in Oakland between 1952 and 1954.

Peterson taught briefly at Washington State University before being appointed Professor of Art at the University of California at Davis in 1956. He taught at UC Davis for thirty-five years, retiring in 1992 as Professor Emeritus. During Peterson’s tenure he recruited Wayne Thiebaud, Manuel Neri and Robert Arneson to join the art department. In the mid 1950s, Petersen’s art began to encompass a figurative approach rather than pure abstraction. While he did not entirely abandon the tenets of non-representational art, he would soon become known as a member of the Bay Area Figurative Movement, specifically the “Bridge Generation.”

Peterson won a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1963 which allowed him to once again study in Paris at Atelier 17. In 1970, he was awarded a Fulbright Fellowships which he used to return to Paris and the atelier.

Peterson is a member of the American Association of University Professors, the San Francisco Art Association, and the California Society of Printmakers. Peterson has had extensive sold exhibitions and has been included numerous in group exhibitions. In 2010, the retrospective Roland Peterson: 50 Years of Painting was featured at the Monterey Museum of Art.