Untitled A

Christopher Wool

2021

An etching with aquatint in which Christopher Wool captures spontaneous, calligraphic gestures and ink washes to translate the energy of painting into the language of print.

A dense, central brown-black bloom reads like an inkblot or storm cloud, its edges softened by translucent aquatint washes and animated by looping, frenetic black lines and scattered droplets across the pale paper.

The work shows how contemporary artists use traditional printmaking processes to preserve painterly immediacy and chance, blurring the line between gestural abstraction and reproducible media.

Palette

Art Terms

Etching Aquatint Print Abstraction Gestural Calligraphy Edition

Exhibitions

Committed to Print

1988

American Prints, 1960–1985

1987

American Prints from the International Program

1971

American Drawings and Watercolors: A Selection from the Collection

1969