Label Type
Descriptive LabelLabel
"Rudy Pozzatti Hawaii I Color zinc-plate etching, aquatint, lift-ground etching, and soft-ground etching 1971 Acc. No. 1974.29
Rudy Pozzatti is a printmaker and painter, born in 1926 in Telluride, Colorado. He attended the University of Colorado, where he later taught in 1948. He also worked at Yale University, Ohio State University, Indiana University, and in Florence, Italy. Pozzatti was a professor of printmaking at Indiana University for the longest period of his career. His work is displayed in the Art Institute in Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Roten Galleries in Baltimore. He has received many awards, including the Carl Zigrosser Memorial Award from the American Color Print Society in 1979, and a Rockefeller Grant in 1995. Pozzatti’s current dealer is the Neville-Sargent Gallery of Chicago. Rudy Pozzatti, now retired, resides in Bloomington, Indiana. Hawaii I belongs to a two-part series that reflects Pozzatti’s response to the exotic environment he encountered as an artist-in-residence for a semester in Honolulu. Pozzatti often used a saturated, earth-toned palette to enhance or amplify the thematic content of his prints.
This print consists of five horizontal bands or friezes. The colors vary among the horizontal bands. The top of the print contains two rectangular sections that feature the hibiscus flower. Directly below are two sections representing a volcano and the lava erupting from it. Below the volcano is an image of waves. In the last section featured at the bottom of the print there are many inscriptions, and a map-like illustration. The inscriptions are as follows: Oahu, Daccio, Gina, Illica, Kai, 41, Me, Toti, Valri, 1971. There are three prominent colors in the print, namely, blue for the waves, a lavender color for the hibiscus, and brown for the volcano. The print was made on German etching paper. Pozzatti designed a distinctive print mark in 1963, consisting of three domes over the artist’s initials “RP.” The central motif is encircled by a snake. This mark has appeared in the bottom right-hand corner of all Pozzatti’s prints since 1964. Hawaii I was produced by Pozzatti in the era of conceptual art, a stylistic movement in which the idea of a work almost matters more than its physical representation. Works from this period are meant to be provocative. As you can see in Pozzatti’s print, the artist is trying to convey thoughts and impressions about Hawaii in a suggestive, allusive manner.
Kristen Busenbark "