Steel on the Barren Plain 5

Clayton E. Walker

Clayton Walker's father was a professional sign painter in Kentucky and the artist, as a child, often used his father's brushes and house paint to create his own works on the side of a barn, learning to paint with bold colors, broad strokes and dealing with the weathered grain of the wood.

This large color woodcut pays homage to those experiences, a riot of basic colors applied horizontally to the surface. Though the composition appears to be gestural, each color requires the cutting and printing of a separate block. He utilizes the grain of the wood for texture and depth. Walker did a series of large abstract expressionist woodcuts based on the theme of the locomotive crossing the plains.

While studying at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris in 1955 Walker met and began a long friendship with Picasso. He returned to the US to Texas, taking a job as art director at the San Antonio Institute of Art until 1963. This work was done during that period.