Avis Chitwood
(1894-1994)
&
Margaret Evelyn Whittemore
(1897-1983)
&
Mary Huntoon
(1896-1970)
American (Kansas) Printmakers.
What have the two first women and Mary Huntoon in common besides these two lovely prints I stumbled upon? An educated guess is that Margaret did the birds and Avis the flowers. I will show you why. In this and next two postings to come. Maybe the result is not totally "Japanese" (using opaque paint and heavy paper) but the ladies were definitly inspired by Japonisme. The joy of designing and printing them together in a joint venture is jumping of the paper. Follow me on a trail back to Edinburgh and Paris.
Ruby throated hummingbird. Baltimore oriole.
To begin with both women lived to a high age and stayed creatively active , both were American. Both lived most of their long lifes in Tupeka, Kansas. Both knew the same people. Both were influenced and taught by the same teacher. Both depicted in their solo careers simple subjects from their nearby environment and surroundings.
Avis concentrated mainly on plants and Margaret on birds, trees, buildings and illustrated books. Both have works collected by the same museums and are united in the same collections to this day. Were I found and borrowed many of the pictures I used to create this and the next two posting. Link in to their visitors galleries and find many more interesting examples of their and many other printers art work.
Both were active in their own studio's and in the privat studio of Mary Huntoon (1896-1970). She founded the Topeka Print Makers. They headquartered in her studio. She did this wonderful drawing of three lady (friends, members?) sketching somewhere in the in 1930's. Maybe Avis and Margaret are even in it.
How good she was you can see in this small and deceivingly simple sketch of Brooklyn Bridge (below). I think she studied Arthur Wesly Dow's instructions on Notan very carefully.
After studying with printer Joseph Pennell at the Art Students League in New York 1920-graduating 1923 and travelling to Paris and producing prints there for several years, Mary Huntoon returned 1930 to native Topeka to teach printmaking at the Arts Department of Washburn College (now Washburn University). The same school she graduated from 10 years before in 1920. As did Margaret Whittemore at her mothers school director Frances Dean-Whittemore, herself a graduate from the Art Institute in Chicago became art teacher and later director of Washburn College 1912-1929. This is how Avis Chitwood (above about 1965) came to attend her printing classes with Mary Huntoon after a self educating career in painting and printing and running an Arts and Crafts shop in Topeka.
In 1930 the Kansas Print Makers were founded. Their only woman co-founder was Norma Basset Hall (1884-1957) (above and below). (two not everyday seen prints by Norma Basset-Hall)
Educated in the same Chicago's Art Institute (1915-graduated 1918) she and her husband travelled to Europe from 1925 -1927 visiting France, England and Scotland meeting in the end the noted etcher Ernest Lumsden and his wife: Mabel Royds (1874-1941). They stayed a year at the Lumsden-Royd's studying and absorbing the latest printing techniques with transparent water-based inks from Mabel Royds. Mabel a pioneer in woodblock printing and influenced by Henri Toulouse Lautrec. Lumsden already very famous for his etchings. 
Ernest Lumsden: etching from the London scenes series.
Mabel Royds was an appointed teacher in the Edinburgh School of Arts, together with colleague printer and head of the Applied Arts Department since 1910 John Edgar Platt (1886-1967). Platt was taught woodblock printing by Allan William Seaby (1867-1953). Seaby himself a pupil of Frank Morley Fletcher.
Frank Morley Fletcher (1866-1950) was director of the Edinburgh School of Art (1907-1923). Thus tying all important beginning of the XXth century Brittish woodblock printers together in Edinburgh. For further reading on these printers and the influences of Japanese printer Urushibara please follow the link to a recent post on Art and the Aesthete: http://www.clivechristy.com/2010/11/urushibara-and-frank-morley-fletcher.html
Fletcher later moved to California (US) and became director of the Santa Barbara Art School (1924-1930). Fletcher resigned as director in the spring of 1930 and eventually moved to Los Angeles where he continued to teach, paint, and exhibit. In the late 1930s his eyesight began to fail and his output became more sporadic. Wether he knew or met the Kansas Printers or Avis and Margaret I couldn't find evidence of. 
Many important American printers became involved and even paying members (annual fee $ 1,00) of the Kansas Print Makers: among them Steng Wengenroth, Frances Gearhart, William Seltzer Rice, Walter Joseph Philipps and Bertha Jacques. To incourage blockprinting and to the benefit of selling their prints. In the after Great Depression years incouraging a new public to buy Real Art at reasonable prices. Margaret Whittemore was invited to join in an early stage. The Kansas Print Makers Group ended in 1965.
Continuing the trail and history even further back: Frank Morley Fletcher was (also) taught by Fernand Cormond (1845-1924), most important historical painter of France, attending the Cormond school in Paris in1888.
Class of 1885 of Fernand Cormond's school in Paris.Before him Henri Toulouse-Lautrec and Vincent van Gogh took classes there. And there Frank Morley Fletcher, Godfather of all English woodblock printers, became interested in woodblock printing.
In 1889 the World Exhibition took place in Paris. Some 32.000.000 (!) visitors came to Paris over 6.000.000 by train alone. Among them most heads of European states and many contemporary important artists. The list is long. Whistler was there, Gauguin, van Gogh, Edvard Munch, Buffalo Bill Cody and many many others visited the pavillions
The World Fair was held on the grounds near the river Seine were the newly constructed Eifel Tower served as an entrance symbol, and again later in 1900. In 1909 all buildings were demolished and the grounds redesigned into the park as it now exists.
Auguste Lepère (1849-1918) Exposition Internationale 1889 .
(Exactly the same spot, see the perspective, but the party over and the crowds gone)
NEXT:
To be continued soon with postings on the solo prints of both ladies: Margaret Whittemore and Avis Chitwood.
Meryl Watts
(John Edgar Platt (Underground London Zoo poster 1924) 
Ridden with moisture (foxing), heavily stained and dirty. All of them. To this day I am not sure why. Maybe it has to do with coastal Portmeirion, Wales, England. All examples shown on the internet seem to have a local owners origin. But they look as if they’d been tucked away in the garden shed. For decades. How sad. How very sad. 
(John Edgar Platt) 
(London, Blackheath, this early print clearly showing the influence from teacher J.E. Platt to teacher Urushibara) 
In most examples shown here I have taken the liberty, time and trouble to "remove" the stains, the gray shade of dust and durt and “cleaning” them in Photoshop. (The three little lambs, and the moonfish, the snow pine i.p.) You may think of it what you like but for the purpous of showing them here I think it has done them well. They deserved it. Her prints are numbered x/50 so there must be enough still around. I traced some 30 different prints. Some very nice animal prints but many are of the surrounding and beautiful Wales. 
To my surprise I learned she was a pupil of John Edgar Platt (1886-1967) at Blackheath School of Art, London. Today I show you my choice. The apprentice- and relationship to John Edgar Platt is very undeniable and obvious in many of her prints. I personally think she’s great. The wash like structure of the background very much in the old tradition. And is so difficult to get it right. In every print. I’ve added some of Platt’s prints for the interest of comparing. 
In her days Meryl exhibited at the Royal Academy 1938 and after the War worldwide with the British Council. I hope you’ll enjoy this acquaintance with this remarkable but almost forgotten artist. 
