Etching, aquatint and watercolour on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
Ring of Dust in Bloom
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/stanley-boxer-6550" aria-label="More by Stanley Boxer" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Stanley Boxer</a>
Askanceglancelongingly
Presented by Tyler Graphics Ltd in honour of Pat Gilmour, Tate Print Department 1974-7, 2004
abstraction
adults
animals: fantastic
female
from recognisable sources
mermaid
nudes
organic
people
woman
<p>Stanley Boxer is best known for his large scale abstract paintings which have a rich sculptural quality produced by thick, impasto brushwork. Boxer’s paintings were championed by American modernist critic Clement Greenberg (1906-1994), famous for his insistence that painters should eliminate subject matter in their work, aiming instead for the purity of abstraction. When considered in relation to his paintings, the prints Boxer produced at Tyler Graphics between 1975 and 1979 seem somewhat of an anomaly. Over this period, he created several series of figurative works, illustrating whimsical scenes featuring animals and winged figures. Boxer had, however, been making drawings of this nature throughout his career, and he insisted they were closely connected to his abstracts, made with similar gestures and motivation.</p>
paper print etching aquatint watercolour
Askanceglancelongingly
image: 315 × 283 mm
Presented by Tyler Graphics Ltd in honour of Pat Gilmour, Tate Print Department 1974-7, 2004
<p>Stanley Boxer is best known for his large scale abstract paintings which have a rich sculptural quality produced by thick, impasto brushwork. Boxer’s paintings were championed by American modernist critic Clement Greenberg (1906-1994), famous for his insistence that painters should eliminate subject matter in their work, aiming instead for the purity of abstraction. When considered in relation to his paintings, the prints Boxer produced at Tyler Graphics between 1975 and 1979 seem somewhat of an anomaly. Over this period, he created several series of figurative works, illustrating whimsical scenes featuring animals and winged figures. Boxer had, however, been making drawings of this nature throughout his career, and he insisted they were closely connected to his abstracts, made with similar gestures and motivation. 
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<br/>Tate received twenty-five of Stanley Boxer’s prints as part of the Tyler gift, comprising a complete portfolio of <i>Ring of Dust in Bloom</i>, 1976, an incomplete portfolio of <i>Carnival of Animals</i>, 1979, and two individual prints. 
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<br/>This print is from <i>Ring of Dust in Bloom</i>, a portfolio of twelve intaglio prints Boxer produced at the Tyler Graphics studios between September 1975 and July 1976. Copper plates were cut into shapes (circles, half circles, ovals, triangles) onto which Boxer drew his images, utilising a number of techniques, including aquatint (where acid was applied to the plate with a brush), drypoint and etching with both hard and soft ground. The composition of each print was dictated by the shape of the plate. Boxer applied inks from a fifteen-colour palette to the processed plates using his hands and these were printed by a technician at the studio. Boxer then painted each of the dry prints using watercolours, which he allowed to bleed over the edges of the print onto the large white border.
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<br/>The images in this series, with their distortions of size and fantastical characters, have a surrealist sensibility. Boxer’s nudes appear to be nymphs, angels, or earth goddesses, but do not refer to any specific mythology. Animals, plants and figures appear to metamorphose into one another, emphasised by Boxer’s use of surface patterning and texture. <i>Askanceglancelongingly</i> 1976, printed from a square shaped plate, shows a small central figure, surrounded by lightly delineated foliage. The surface patterns and colours shift into a bird above the figure’s head and a fish on the lower right corner.
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<br/>The prints in this series are produced in an edition of twenty-eight with nine artist’s proofs. While Tate holds all twelve prints in the series, each is differently numbered. This work is 12/28.
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<br/>Sean Rainbird (ed.), <i>Print Matters: The Kenneth E. Tyler Gift</i>, exhibition catalogue, Tate, 2004.
<br/><i>Tyler Graphics Catalogue Raisonné, 1974-1985</i>, Walker Arts Center, Minneapolis, USA, 1987, pp.66-77, reproduced p.81 in colour.
<br/><i>Stanley Boxer: Ring of Dust in Bloom</i>, Tyler Graphics, New York, 1973, reproduced in colour, unpaginated.
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<br/>Maria Bilske
<br/>October 2005</p>

Summary
2006-01-24T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
abstraction adults animals: fantastic female from recognisable sources mermaid nudes organic people woman