Paul Landacre: California Hills, Hollywood, and the World Beyond
The long-awaited definitive work on master wood engraver Paul Landacre (1893–1963), a key figure of California modernism.
With his virtuosic prints of rolling California hills, classically inspired nudes, and natural and manmade forms — from a seashell to his own printing press — Paul Landacre elevated wood engraving to a high art form in twentieth-century America. Landacre’s ceaseless stylistic innovation placed his work in dialogue with California contemporaries like Edward Weston and Henrietta Shore; he was, in fact, central to an artistic milieu that has been described as a “small Renaissance, Southern California style.” It is fitting, too, that the velvety blacks and dazzling whites of Landacre’s prints can recall the images of the silver screen — for the artist’s rustic bungalow on a Los Angeles hill was but a stone’s throw from Hollywood, and his early patrons and supporters included such luminaries as the director Delmer Daves and the actress Kay Francis. This handsome two-volume set, illustrated with generously sized, high-quality reproductions, offers a definitive catalogue not only of Landacre’s individual wood engravings but also of his early linocuts, his celebrated book illustrations, and his experimental works in other media, including painting, drawing, and lithography. Yet this is much more than a catalogue raisonné — the fruit of more than 30 years of research, it brings to life the bohemian world in which the artist lived, and the rich cultural and artistic context of his work. Landacre’s prints are already prized by curators and collectors; this landmark publication will give him his rightful place in the firmament of American art.
Jake Milgram Wien is a cultural historian who has curated important exhibitions on Thomas Hart Benton, Rockwell Kent, and Bernarda Bryson Shahn. His writings appear in Print Quarterly, Archives of American Journal, Common Knowledge, Studio International, and The Magazine Antiques. Dana Gioia is the former poet laureate of California. John Bidwell is curator emeritus at the Morgan Library and Museum.