Woodcut on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
ARTIST ROOMS
National Heritage Memorial Fund
Art Fund
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/vija-celmins-2731" aria-label="More by Vija Celmins" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Vija Celmins</a>
Ocean Surface Woodcut 1992
ARTIST ROOMS
Acquired jointly with the National Galleries of Scotland through The d'Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008
emotions, concepts and ideas
formal qualities
photographic
sea
seascapes and coasts
wave
<p>Ocean Surface Woodcut 1992 is a woodcut of ocean waves on Whatman 1953 paper, printed in collaboration with master printer Leslie Miller and published by The Grenfell Press, New York in an edition of fifty plus ten artist’s proofs. The copy held by ARTIST ROOMS is artist’s proof number 9/10, noted at the bottom left corner of the print and signed by the artist and dated 1992 at the bottom right. Artist’s proofs are identical in appearance to the numbered edition but are usually printed beforehand with the artist and publisher retaining most, if not all, of the proofs. The curator Susan Lambert has explained the basic tenets of this traditional relief printing process:</p>
paper print woodcut
14 March 2009 – 8 November 2009
2009-11-08
12 March 2009 – 8 November 2009
2009-11-08
2009-03-12
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Edinburgh, UK)
http://www.nationalgalleries.org/
2009-03-14
ARTIST ROOMS Vija Celmins
Collection based display
25 September 2010 – 31 January 2011
2011-01-31
25 September 2010 – 31 January 2011
2011-01-31
2010-09-25
Whitworth Art Gallery (Manchester, UK)
http://www.whitworth.man.ac.uk
2010-09-25
The Land Between Us
Loan-out
21 May 2011 – 30 July 2011
2011-07-30
21 May 2011 – 30 July 2011
2011-07-30
2011-05-21
Gracefield Arts Centre (Dumfries, UK)
http://www.dumgal.gov.uk/gracefield
2011-05-21
ARTIST ROOMS 2011: Vija Celmins
Loan-out
5 May 2012 – 24 March 2013
2013-03-24
5 May 2012 – 24 March 2013
2013-03-24
2012-05-05
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2012-05-05
ARTIST ROOMS Vija Celmins
Collection based display
29 March 2014 – 28 June 2014
2014-06-28
29 March 2014 – 28 June 2014
2014-06-28
2014-03-29
Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum & Arts Centre (Lochmaddy, UK)
2014-03-29
ARTIST ROOMS 2014: Vija Celmins
Loan-out
21 September 2019 – 22 February 2020
2020-02-22
21 September 2019 – 16 November 2019
2019-11-16
2019-09-21
Quay Arts (Newport, UK)
2019-09-21
ARTIST ROOMS 2019: Vija Celmins
Tate partnerships & programmes
3 February 2024 – 18 May 2025
2025-05-18
3 February 2024 – 4 May 2024
2024-05-04
2024-02-03
Hatton Gallery (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK)
17 May 2024 – 18 August 2024
2024-08-18
2024-05-17
Burgh Hall (Dunoon, UK)
19 October 2024 – 12 January 2025
2025-01-12
2024-10-19
The Box (Plymouth, UK)
2024-02-03
Vija Celmins
Loan-out
Ocean Surface Woodcut 1992
image: 224 × 304 mm
frame: 530 × 430 × 37 mm
<a href="/search?gid=999999788" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">ARTIST ROOMS</a>
Acquired jointly with the National Galleries of Scotland through The d'Offay Donation with assistance from the <a href="/search?gid=999999967" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">National Heritage Memorial Fund</a> and the <a href="/search?gid=999999968" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Art Fund</a> 2008
<div class="text">
<p>Ocean Surface Woodcut 1992 is a woodcut of ocean waves on Whatman 1953 paper, printed in collaboration with master printer Leslie Miller and published by The Grenfell Press, New York in an edition of fifty plus ten artist’s proofs. The copy held by ARTIST ROOMS is artist’s proof number 9/10, noted at the bottom left corner of the print and signed by the artist and dated 1992 at the bottom right. Artist’s proofs are identical in appearance to the numbered edition but are usually printed beforehand with the artist and publisher retaining most, if not all, of the proofs. The curator Susan Lambert has explained the basic tenets of this traditional relief printing process: </p>
<p class="cttext">
</p><blockquote>In woodcutting the drawing is made on a smoothed block of relatively soft wood such as pear, sycamore, cherry or beech. It is cut like a plank, lengthwise along the grain. The lines of the drawing are left untouched, while the wood on either side of them is cleared away with a knife ... It is also possible for the actual image to be cut into the plank. When this is the case, the lines remain un-inked when printed. </blockquote>
<blockquote>(Lambert 2001, p.20.)</blockquote>
<p>In Ocean Surface Woodcut 1992, Celmins cut the drawing itself into the wood surface so that her incisions translated in reverse to become the un-inked white lines of the print. This is a highly graphic and stylised technique, even more so than the related <i>wood engraving</i> <i>(see </i>Ocean Surface Wood Engraving 2000<i>, Tate</i> <i><a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/celmins-ocean-surface-wood-engraving-2000-ar00473" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>AR00473</span></a>)</i>. The image only coalesces into a churning mass of waves when viewed at a distance; up close it is highly abstract – a thicket of black triangular forms and hatched and cross-hatched fine white lines. The rhythmic ocean entirely fills the printed surface, with no horizon line or sky visible, although it does recede perspectivally on a steeply-inclined picture plane.</p>
<p>This ocean image is based on one of a group of photographs of the Pacific Ocean, taken by the artist near her home in California in the late 1960s. The subject matter of the ocean first appeared in Celmins’s work in 1968, with a series of graphite pencil on paper drawings that experimented with variations in the density and tone of graphite across the various photographic iterations. Speaking of its reappearance across many works and various decades, Celmins noted: ‘The ocean image is one that is part of me and that I try to do every now and then with a new sensibility or process.’ (Quoted in Rippner 2002, p.30.) Within the extensive group of prints by Celmins in ARTIST ROOMS there are two other works that utilise the ocean motif, and in all likelihood the same source photographs from the 1960s, as the starting point for the printed image. These are <i>Drypoint – </i>Ocean Surface <i>1983 (Tate AR00467</i>) and Ocean Surface Wood Engraving 2000 2000. Along with Ocean Surface Woodcut 1992, these works demonstrate the persistence and longevity of the ocean image as subject matter, migrating to different printmaking techniques in the artist’s practice over three consecutive decades. Regarding this relationship between her photographic source material and the final print, the artist has said: </p>
<p class="cttext">
</p><blockquote>The photo image is just the barest help; I still have to pay close attention not to lose my place as I refer to the actual image. The [photograph for the] first woodcut image [<i>Ocean Surface Woodcut 1992</i>] was taken at Venice Beach about 1969, and I had carried it with me to New York. In this print I wanted the shape of the ocean waves to carry all the spatial information and the woodblock to be just this flat, black block of printed wood. </blockquote>
<blockquote>(Quoted in ibid., pp.43–4.)</blockquote>
<p>Ocean Surface Woodcut 1992 is a far freer translation from photographic source to printed image than the majority of Celmins’s prints, as the woodcutting process leads to a more patterned and less illusionistic surface finish. The peaks and troughs of the ocean appear more like solid masses than an ever-changing body of water. The techniques used by the artist in her prints are complicated, laborious and time-consuming, and this is particularly true of the woodcut. The artist has remarked: ‘The ocean woodcut was difficult because it was so hard to find your place in it and also if you make too big a cut it’s a goner.’ (Quoted in ibid., p.25.) This articulation of risk helps to account for the sensation of tension across the surface of the print. The art historian Susan Tallman has considered the artist’s printmaking oeuvre in light of these technical challenges: </p>
<p class="cttext">
</p><blockquote>Celmins gives us unencompassable vastness, reduced to intimacy. Her images thrive in situations where the act of drawing encounters the greatest physical resistance: [in] gouges in wood that cause her oceans to stiffen and condense … The visible labor in works like these is often astonishing – Celmins spent a year cutting the woodcut <i>Ocean </i>(1992) – but drudgery is not the point. The point is the visceral presence of what [the artist Chuck] Close calls a ‘record of decisions having been made.’</blockquote>
<blockquote>(Tallman 1996, p.126.) </blockquote>
<p>
<b>Further reading </b>
<br/>Susan Tallman, <i>The Contemporary Print from Pre-Pop to Postmodern</i>, London 1996, reproduced p.126.<br/>Susan Lambert, <i>Prints: Art and Techniques</i>, London 2001.<br/>Samantha Rippner, <i>The Prints of Vija Celmins</i>, exhibition catalogue, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 2002, reproduced p.38. </p>
<p>Stephanie Straine <br/>May 2010</p>
</div>

Summary
2012-07-03T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
<p>Celmins's intense monochromatic images of the night sky, based on photographs, focus on small and individual marks in the context of vastness. The images seem fragile because they record a specific human glimpse through a telescope or camera which is ephemeral and frozen in time. Celmins's serial exploration of her subjects, including the night sky, allows the artist to exploit the distinct characteristics of the variety of media she uses. The photograph used as the source material for this woodcut was taken at Venice Beach, Los Angeles in about 1969. Celmins used a very small amount of ink on the woodblock, leaving a thin skin printed on the paper.</p>

Online caption
2009-04-16T00:00:00
online-caption
ONLINE_CAPTION
emotions, concepts and ideas formal qualities photographic sea seascapes and coasts wave