Jeanne Billfaldt, (American, 1920-2002)

Table Top Still Life

White-line color woodblock print. Signed in pencil at lower right corner, Jeanne Billfaldt. Self-carved and self-printed by the artist, ca. 1948.

27.8 by 22.5 cm

Jeanne Billfaldt grew up in Houston, Texas, and studied art at the Houston Museum, the University of Houston, the University of Tulsa and the Art Students League in New York City. Billfaldt was a painter of still life and figural subjects; she was particularly interested in the ballet. She also produced monoprints pulled from glass and white-line woodblock prints. Billfaldt exhibited early in her career, in the 1940's-50's, at the Houston Museum, the Texas General, the Southern States Art League and the Texas Fine Arts Association. She supplemented her income with a painting conservation business. In 1992 Billfaldt moved to Asheville, North Carolina, where she lived out her life, continuing to paint and restore art.

This print is an example of white-line woodblock printing, a unique technique which was developed in America in 1915-1916 by a small group of artists working together in Provincetown on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The process simplified the standard method, instead of using a keyblock and multiple color blocks, the white-line method utilized a single block, with the outline of a design carved deeply. The paper was then affixed to the block, and the raised portions were inked (usually with watercolors) and hand-printed one shape or color at a time. This eliminated the need for multiple blocks (and the time needed to carve them), and created the entirely new 'white-line' prints, also known as Provincetown prints. Because the inks were brushed onto the shapes on the block in a painterly way, the way those pigments were manipulated made each impression unique. The luminous gradation of colors on this print exemplifies the sensitivity of the white-line printing.