Self-Portrait XLI

Roy W. Ragle

Roy Ragle had a successful career exhibiting his astonishingly detailed and very large woodcut portraits. His work was often mistakenly labelled as lithographs or etchings in exhibitions because no one believed that his fluid, spidery line work could come from the rigid woodcut form. His mastery of craft was matched by the psychological perception of his subjects, which more often than not included himself, as he described the harrowing affects of Crohn's disease on his physiognomy.

Ragle's work was often mistakenly labelled as lithography or intaglio in exhibitions because many curators could not believe that his fluid, spidery line work could come from the typically rigid relief method.

This print is printed relief, meaning that the white areas were cut away and the remaining surface lines were inked and printed, both of which involved great care, concentration and skill. Ragle incorporated the grain of the woodblock into the center of this composition.

Roy Ward Ragle was born on December 8, 1944 in San Diego, California. He had begun his MFA program at San Diego State University (SDSU) before being drafted into the U.S. military in 1970. While in the military he was diagnosed with Crohn's disease. Ragle believed that the stress of military life had brought on the first affects of the disease.

After returning to civilian life Ragle started a job in map making but had initially forgone continuing his MFA program at SDSU. He moved to San Francisco in 1973 with his wife Carol Ragle and attended the San Francisco Art Institute. Ragle received his MFA in 1974 and began teaching printmaking at San Francisco State University (SFSU). He taught for four years, but his health could not withstand the strains of teaching.

The endless rounds of hospitalizations and the darkening vision of his artwork caused him to withdraw from the art world. Over the course of the last twenty years his work has appeared infrequently with a rare one person exhibition at the Fetterly Gallery in Vallejo in 2000 and at the now defunct Collector’s Gallery at the Oakland Museum in 2005. Ragle produced a self portrait over a series of many years.

Roy Ragle died on December 11 in San Francisco, California, 2014, three days after his 70th birthday.