BETH VAN HOESEN: The Observant Eye

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beth va n hoesen

bob hicks is an independent cultural essayist whose work appears frequently in Art Scatter and The Oregonian, where he was a critic and arts editor for 25 years. Twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism, he has reported from Russia on international exhibition negotiations with the Hermitage, the State Russian Museum, and other cultural institutions. His work has appeared in Biblio, American Theatre, Prologue, and other publications. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

th e observa n t e y e

robert flynn johnson is Curator Emeritus, Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. He has a degree in Art History from McGill University in Montreal and has done graduate work at the Institute of Fine Arts in New York. He is the author of numerous books, most recently The Face in the Lens: Anonymous Photographs, University of California Press, 2009. joseph goldyne is a California artist who came to prominence during the early 1970s as one of those responsible for the rebirth of interest in the monotype. He has shown paintings, drawings and prints internationally, and a retrospective of his work was exhibited at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. in 2001. He has written on artists such as Turner, Menzel, and Diebenkorn, as well as on the history of drawing.

back cover: Mirror, 1979. Etching and aquatint. Image: 14⅞ × 22⅜ inches ISBN ISBN 978-0-932325-93-8 978-0-932325-93-8

All photographs by M. Lee Fatherree, Oakland, California. Cover design by John Hubbard

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780932 325938 printed in canada

fresno art museum

front cover: Two Iris, 1985. Aquatint and drypoint with roulette printed in black, blue, red-brown and yellow inks, handcolored with watercolor. Image: 16⅞ × 13⅞ inches

B E T H VA N H O E S E N The Observant Eye

Over the course of five decades, San Francisco artist Beth Van Hoesen has created intimate prints that bring out the beauty and eccentricities of her ­subjects—people, animals, still lifes, and landscapes. A keen observer of detail, she selects and interprets fragments of daily life, creating images of elegance and restraint. Much of the charm of her work resides in her precise handling of line and her sure sense of color. Given the importance in Van Hoesen’s training of drawing from the live model, it was only natural that portraits and figure studies would become her key subjects, particularly in her early work. She brings a descriptive approach to them, emphasizing contours and surfaces through line alone, or through a combination of linear and tonal means. Going beyond merely observing and recording, she interprets what she sees, bringing out her subject’s uniqueness, rendering a particular gaze or a characteristic tilt of the head to capture an attitude. One feels the psychological connection that she establishes with her subjects as she penetrates intuitively beneath the surface to suggest a sense of interiority that endows them with a sentient presence both visual and palpable. Plants, including vegetables and other foodstuffs as well as flowers, have provided a rich stimulus for Van Hoesen’s prints. Her depictions of edible ­objects—often humble things such as potatoes or eggs placed in homey baskets, boxes, or bowls— awaken our senses to beauty in an apparently ordinary domestic context. Or seen isolated from the household domain, they are displayed in glorious color against a monochrome background. Her flower pieces include arrangements in a variety of containers; those with glass vases on tabletops, set against a patterned background, become interesting

explorations of the deformation of forms seen through water and glass. Or a rendering of a small bouquet in an expensive ceramic cup may float freely on the paper. In other depictions, flowers stand out against a rich color field, their stems cropped by the lower edge of the image, shooting up as if growing in a garden. Botanical accuracy combines with the blossoms’ delicacy to evoke the fleeting aspect of nature’s beauty. Beth Van Hoesen has had solo exhibitions at numerous institutions throughout her career, including such venues as the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; The Oakland Museum of California; Contemporary Graphics Center of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California; and the Portland Art Museum, Oregon. She has participated in many group exhibitions nationally and internationally. Her works reside in many private and public collections, including the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts; The Brooklyn Museum; The Art Institute of Chicago; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Portland Art Museum, Oregon (which holds the most complete archive of her prints); the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Stanford University; the Smithsonian Institution; and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Annette Dixon, Curator of Prints and Drawings Portland Art Museum, Oregon (Excerpted and adapted from her essay for the brochure accompanying the exhibition sensitive vision: The Prints of Beth Van Hoesen, presented at the Portland Art Museum in the Vivian and Gordon Gilkey Center for Graphic Arts, May 2–August 16, 2009.) Used by permission. © Portland Art Museum 2009.


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