Label
Mary Lou Hess was born in 1929 at Silver Creek in New Albany, Indiana, and she studied printmaking at Pratt Institute under Virginia Brunner, and also at Indiana University Southeast under Susan Moffett. Her favorite technique is acid palette etching, that is, etching on a zinc plate with nitric acid. The plate then went through her Laszlo Universal Hand press three times, once each in yellow, blue and red. Twenty–two of her prints were collected in a book that she and Dianne Aprile, a writer and journalist, compiled, and that is entitled The Eye is Not Enough. Hess got the title for both this etching and the book from the poet Theodore Roethke. The print was made in her later career and is the last example in her book. Hess has won many awards including two in the 60-square inches exhibitions held at Purdue University in 1990 and 1992, and she also was honored by a purchase award from Purdue. She has received awards from other competitions, such as The Ohio Valley Annual and The Northern Illinois Art Fest, and her works have been shown in the Indianapolis Museum of Art and the University of Wisconsin Small Prints Exhibition, which was sponsored by the Miniature Painters, Sculptures and Engravers Society of Washington, D.C.
This print is a landscape, a favorite subject of the artist. In an artist’s statement, Hess said: “I see texture, shapes, and space in nature. Landscape is an excuse for making an etching.” In the foreground of the print is a line of leafless trees. Then there is the dark line of a mountain followed by tree-covered mountains. There are many layers and levels to the mountains and above is the sky, with trees breaking the horizon line; one also sees a moon on the left. A wide range of colors is used, including light and dark blue, orange, yellow, purple, red, white and pink. Most of these appear in the mountains, and the trees are colored mainly yellow. The sky is a mixture of purple and blue.
Courtney Vance
Mary Lou Hess The Eye is not Enough Acid palette etching 8 x 7 in. 1991 Acc. No. 1992.09