sorting through the stories of the artists who came before

Somehow about a year and a half ago I found myself mildly obsessed with the prints of a somewhat successful printmaker who died in 1964. Hugh P. Botts was prominent enough to have an obituary in the New York Times, work in some major museum collections, and a few write-ups in the books. But nowadays he isn't that seen. He worked on the New Deal's Work Progress Administration's Graphic Project in the late 1930s and he had some successes in group shows and a solo show at the library of congress in 1950 but I think of him as a shoe-stringer type. Joiner of artists organizations, perpetual student and sometimes teacher, but always a maker and artist...



If one of the themes of cultural production in the 1930s was the American search for a usable past, I won't deny that my hunt for the stories in the work and the story of the man who made them was motivated by curiousity and comraderie. It makes a lot of sense to me that this man made a little bit of everything, from patents to metal engraving. The bits of story I find as I search archival records and old newspapers is nothing if not inconclusive but it is inspiring. Empathy, and humor, and the city of New York and its people weave through his life and his prints, in 1936 and in the conversations I have of them now...

My day job is at a museum and this museum quietly keeps over 80 of his prints in our permanent collection where they mostly live in sealed boxes in a temperature controlled room. Compared to the way the work I make lives, it is a nice life if a little safe. Anyway, the prints caught my eye because many of them were made in the middle of the Great Depression and they were full of wit, wonder, empathy and oddity.

I paid most attention to three of these prints and the meanings they might have. And now, or soon, his prints will start to hang on walls again. There's irony in knowing that his etchings will hang near the work of Reginald Marsh (he didn't have any trouble selling work in the Depression). Or that this work will go up now as we wonder just exactly how awful the global economy is and what it means to make art when there are more pressing needs.



My museum will hang 21 of his prints in groupings of 3 over a 5 week cycle 7 times. I am writing the labels and my friend the museum preparator is rematting and framing the etchings. At some point there will be more of his story on my museum's website but for now, I'm pleased with the idea that museum walls can share the stories of the working artists not just the uber-successful ones...

See here for more of his prints (just enter Hugh Botts in the search) and let me know if you know anymore about Botts, or any other of the artists who came before who keep you making and thinking...



best,

Rachael