Artist: Ambrose Patterson
Medium: Original Japanese Woodblock Print
Series Title: Hawai'i
Edition: First
Date: c.1917
Publisher: The Artist - Privately Published
Reference No.: Wichita Art Association
Size: 10 x 14 -1/4 " (over-sized margins)
Condition: Very fine, with superb colors.
Notes:
RARE. A very early state, with striking colors. Titled and signed in red crayon by the artist. Never framed or displayed; includes the original paper label receipt with purchase price. Provenance: Originally acquired at The Print Club (Wichita Art Association) - First Annual Exhibition of American Block Prints, during February 14 to February 26, 1927.
Ambrose McCarthy Patterson (29 June 1877 – 26 December 1966), was an Australian-born American painter and printmaker. He studied at the Melbourne Art School under E. Phillips Fox and Tudor St. George Tucker, at the National Gallery Art School in Melbourne and continued his studies in Paris at the Académie Colarossi and the Académie Julian under Lucien Simon, André Lhote and Maxime Maufra. He became part of the Paris arts scene and exhibited at the first Salon d'Automne exhibitions. He had five paintings at the 1905 Paris Salon at which Henri Matisse and the fauves stunned the art world.
He arrived in Hawaii in 1916 on a stopover from Sydney to New York and decided to stay with a Parisian friend living in Honolulu. During the next 18 months, Patterson made block prints and paintings with particular interest in Kilauea. His art was included in the Hawaiian Society of Artists Annual in 1917. He left for California in 1918 and settled in Seattle. At the 1918 Spring Annual of the San Francisco Art Association (SFAA) his wood block prints were said to be "especially fine in color." That summer his art was given a one-man exhibition at the SFAA galleries, and he contributed three color prints to the Seventh Annual of the California Society of Etchers.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Modern Art in New York, Honolulu Museum of Art, National Portrait Gallery in Australia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Seattle Art Museum and Tacoma Art Museum are among the public collections holding works by Ambrose McCarthy Patterson.