Kristin Holden - Blanton Museum
Posted by Karen Bogisch
Our speaker on July 20 was Kristen Holden, from the Blanton Museum, who is in charge of the Print Room and has been with the museum since 2013. She spoke on art as it relates to community service.
Kristen stated that she uses prints to educate people about culture, customs, service, and religion from different eras, and gave us many examples of art and community service that included the following:
16th Century Italian Works
Charity by Raimondi depicting women with children
Charity by Beham an engraving from 1539 depicting women, children and dogs
7 Deadly Sins - from the 1400s where Pride is considered the root of all sins from which all other sins are derived: Justice by Beham depicted Woman with wings holding a sword and scales
English Works
Industry & Idleness by William Hogarth was a series of 12 prints depicting Good Prentice and Bad Prentice
Idle (Tom) by Hogarth depicted a man to be a gambler and cheat
Moral Stories of Culture – this era the English, French, and Spanish were highly critical of poor moral character
Print by Riggs – American lithograph from 1940 depicted a medical scene with a woman in a hospital bed
Print by Arenal – Mexican lithograph from 1938 called Street Row depicted injustice of common life in Mexico
Print by Bacho – Mexican lithograph from 1949 called The Bridge & The Peddler depicted people trying to survive in everyday life
Print by Mendez – Mexican lithograph from 1945 called the Liberator depicting a man with an axe, a Church, people hanging, and a swastika to reflect on the atrocities of Hitler
Print by Rivera – Mexican lithograph from 1932 called The Rural Teacher depicting a teacher with young and old student in a farming community while a soldier looks on
Print by Benton – American lithograph from 1940 called the Instructor depicting a black man teaching a child
Engraving by Durer from 1521 depicting St. Christopher teaching how to serve God
Charcoal Print by White – American from 1954 depicting Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth
Print by Bresdin – French 1954 called the Good Samaritan depicting a Muslim slaughtering Christians in Syria
Kristin also spoke of two types of prints- Etching, which uses a layer of wax on metal where the artist uses a needle to etch the wax and Engraving in which a metal instrument is used to cut into the metal