The Prairie Print Makers

The Prairie Print Makers Collection at the Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, was originally assembled by Bud Jennings. Driven by the spirit of the hunt, Jennings pieced together a formidable archive of prints and materials relating the Prairie Print Makers. The archive could not have been formed without Bud's untiring enthusiasm. He located prints at estate sales, and tracked down friends and family members of the artists. His goal was twofold: to acquire a complete set of the gift prints and to acquire at least one print by each member of the Prairie Print Makers. Only two members are lacking from the collection: James (John?) Cassell and Edwin H. Holgate. In 1988 the Spencer Museum of Art displayed the collection of Bud and Ruby Jennings in an exhibition featuring the Gift Prints.

When the Jenningses decided to sell the collection, they came first to the Spencer Museum of Art. Through the combined generosity of the Jenningses and another friend of the museum and avid print collector, Steven Schmidt (K.U. Class of 1958), the Spencer Museum acquired the collection in 1991. Mr. Schmidt donated the Gift Prints to the museum through purchase and the remainder of the collection was given outright by Mr. and Mrs. Jennings. Through their combined efforts the Spencer Museum of Art is the home of this important archive of one of the most distinguished chapters in Kansas printmaking. We will soon post, on this page, a full listing of the 139 prints that comprise the Prairie Print Makers Collection.

On December 28, 1930, at the Lindsborg Kansas studio of Birger Sandzen, the eleven charter members of the Prairie Print Makers held their first meeting. The goals of the group were spelled out in a letter of invitation to the Wichita artist William Dickerson: "the object of this group is to further the interest of both artists and laymen in printmaking and collecting." The group comprised three categories of membership. Over the years there were more than seventy-five "Active Members" of the Prairie Print Makers who were practicing printmakers elected by invitation and who paid annual dues of $1.00. "Associate Members" were also elected by invitation, but paid annual dues of $5.00 and received the annual gift print made by one of the active members, as well as other publications of the group. Finally, "Honorary Members" paid no dues but received all the benefits of the Associate Members.

In all, thirty-four gift prints were issued annually from 1931 until 1965 with the exception of 1963, when no gift print was issued. O'neill and Foreman have summarized the essential facts concerning the gift prints: the artist was selected by a committee, usually the group's three officers, and the artist was paid $150 (the society paid for the expense of printing, matting, and mailing). The print was usually made during the summer, after annual dues were collected, and it was distributed in November with a brochure containing comments by another member. Printing (usually in an edition of 200) was either by the artist, George C. Miller in New York, Goodspeeds in Boston, Lynton Kistler in Los Angeles, or the Western Lithograph Company of Wichita.

The Prairie Print Makers were not without precedent. There was a tradition of earlier print organizations in America, and a history of earlier printmaking in Kansas. To better understand the contribution of this group of printmaking enthusiasts it will be useful to quickly survey these antecedents. Although there were some early nineteenth-century organizations which fostered enthusiasm for printmaking, such as the Apollo Association for the Promotion of the Fine Arts in New York City (founded 1839), and the Etching Club in London (founded 1840), primacy is often given to two Paris based groups, the Société des Aquafortistes (the Etchers' Society) founded in 1862, whose members received portfolios monthly; and the Société des Peintres-Graveurs (Society of Painter-Engravers) founded in 1889. Largely based on the successful model of the Société des Aquafortistes, similar organizations began to appear in America as early as 1866 when the French Etching Club was founded in New York. By the 1880s the Boston Etching Club, the Philadelphia Society of Etchers, the Cincinnati Etchers Club, and the Brooklyn Scratchers Club were active. However, it may not have been until 1910, with the advent of the Chicago Society of Etchers, that an American club began to issue editions of prints. Prints have long been considered to be an ideal popular art form because of their affordability. In her Prints for the Layman of 1927, Elizabeth Whitmore concluded:

the average householder craves pictures that shall be originals lovely enough in craftsmanship to meet the test of long familiarity, varied enough in size and tone to fit available spaces, yet inexpensive enough to allow a series of changing groups no one of which need ever remain on the wall long enough at a time to lose freshness and meaning.

Whitmore was not writing about "the democratic art" of chromolithography or the popular sheets issued by Currier and Ives; she was advocating the then relatively inexpensive prints of artists such as John Taylor Arms, Félix Bracquemond and Thomas Nason. In the wake of the depression, however, it was necessary to take extra measures to keep the cost of prints down by publishing larger editions (for which the lithograph was well suited). In general, the American public turned away from the more expensive European printmakers such as Haden, Zorn, and Whistler and increasingly favored what Janet Flint has called "the stability and reassurance offered by familiar American subjects."

Throughout this period print groups continued to grow, some with specialized missions, such as the Print Club of Philadelphia (founded 1922)which was organized by collectors, and the Print Club of Cleveland (founded 1919) which was among the first museum affiliated club. Other organizations, while still serving the good cause of making prints more accessible to the American public, were more frankly commercial in their purpose. Writing in 1942 for Esquire Magazine, Mark Ashley described the "strange culture-and success saga of Reeves Lewenthal," founder of Associated American Artists. Ashley described with relish (and some poetic license) how Lewenthal went "dashing, at top speed, to see Tom Benton, the arch-illustrator of American folklore," and said: "'I want to see American art in every American department store. I want to it sold like yard goods ... only faster.' 'Good,' said Benton, 'I would like to see it in every saloon.'"It was in this printmaking frenzy of post-depression America that the Prairie Print Makers set up shop, however, most of the charter members had already been active printmakers.

In fact, printmaking in Kansas can be traced back at least to the 1880s when F.O. Marvin, professor and dean of the school of engineering at the University of Kansas, began etching landscapes with surprising sensitivity to the subtleties of inking and the use of various papers. Two natives of Topeka, Mary Huntoon (born 1896) and Margaret Whittemore (born 1897) played important roles in the history of printmaking in Kansas. After studying with Joseph Pennell at the Art Students League in New York in the 20s and making prints in Paris for several years, Huntoon returned to Topeka to teach printmaking at Washburn College. Subsequently, Huntoon was appointed Director of the Federal Arts Project in Kansas in 1936, and from 1970 she pioneered the field of art therapy. Whittemore, as David Henry has summarized, "devoted her career to recording the natural and man-made landmarks of Kansas." Her handsome linoleum blockprints appeared as early as 1929 in facsimile in Kansas Teacher, illustrating articles by the author such as "Reminders of Old Holland in Kansas," and "Kansas Trails."

It is clear from Cynthia Mines' careful study that the history of the Prairie Print Makers owes a great deal to the role played by two of the founding members: the Swedish born Birger Sandzen, who had been inspired to move to Kansas to teach at Bethany College after reading a description of the college in Carl Swensson's I Sverige in 1890; and Carl Smalley, who ran the remarkable "Art Shop" in McPherson, Kansas in his father's converted feed and seed store. Smalley's shop carried prints, books, Rookwood pottery, incense, ivory, coral, and eventually paintings by Sandzen and others. Sandzen, who had studied with the virtuoso etcher Anders Zorn at the University of Lund, as well as with Aman-Jean in Paris prior to his departure for America, taught French at Bethany College until he was appointed professor and head of the art department in 1899. In 1913 Sandzen was among the founders of the "Smoky Hill Art Club," which offered members a print for their annual fee of $1.00 (all earnings were contributed to a fund for needy art students); and by 1916 Sandzen was making his own prints. Sandzen used a nail and a wooden paddle to carve his early woodcuts, which were then printed on a flat-bed press at the Lindsborg News-Record office.

After Sandzen and Smalley were introduced (through one of Sandzen's art students) they became close friends. Smalley often visited Sandzen in Lindsborg on Sundays, bringing with him a portfolio of prints by a staggering list of graphic artists ranging from Dürer and Rembrandt to Meryon and Zorn. In 1916 Smalley introduced Sandzen to the art of lithography, and eventually Smalley was to publish two books on Sandzen's lithographs: In the Smoky Valley (1922), and In the Mountains (1925). Among the most telling indications of the Prairie Print Makers' devotion to quality craftsmanship and their espousal of wholesome middle-American values, is the book produced by two of them in collaboration with the poet Everett Scrogin several years before the formation of the group. This book, Other Days in Pictures and Verse (published in 1928 with woodcut illustrations by Hershel Logan and decorative borders by C.A. Seward), is a nostalgic evocation of the simple and good life threatened by the encroachment of modern times. This sentiment is clearly stated in the introduction, "the quaint old woodcuts are the work of one who saw and lived, and understood the scenes he has depicted; he passed quickly by the shiny, modern auto station, and found romance in the Old Blacksmith Shop." The introduction also proudly states that "this book is a consummation of the hopes and fears and triumphs and tears of Three Good Friends--artists all." It was certainly this spirit of friendship and shared values that prevailed when the Prairie Print Makers first convened in Lindsborg upon the invitation of Seward in 1930.

The artistic stance of the Prairie Print Makers is substantially different from that of the more renowned regionalists: Thomas Hart Benton, John Steuart Curry, and Grant Wood. Of these three, only native Kansan Curry was eventually to join the group. Elizabeth Broun has noted that "the Kansas invented by Curry--along with the Missouri invented by Benton and the Iowa invented by Wood, contained the power of myth," but, as Broun adds, this was at the expense of a realistic vision of life in the mid-west. While the Prairie Print Makers may have occasionally shared the regionalists' mood of nostalgia, there was nothing self-conscious or exploitative in the way their work dealt with the artists' rural heritage, as it often did; they did not attempt to mythicize the mid-west. In addition to Dickerson's statement of the group's objective "to further the interest of both artists and laymen in printmaking and collecting," the motives of the founding members might well be summed up in the Smalley's statement, "I have dreams of providing original prints and good paintings for the walls of every schoolhouse in Kansas." When Sandzen halved the dues of the "Smoky Hill Art Club" to fifty cents during the depression he gave clear testimony to his egalitarian outlook. Likewise, as O'neill has noted, the Prairie Print Makers never raised their dues in the thirty-five years of their activity.

The Prairie Print Makers were dedicated to making their art accessible, not only through membership, but through the travelling exhibitions they organized each year. Many of these champions of an honest, affordable, and accessible American art were also professional graphic artists for whom printmaking was an enthusiastically nurtured avocation. This was also true of many earlier Kansas artists, as Broun has noted, "Marvin, Whittemore, and Huntoon worked as draftsmen for engineering, railroad, and construction companies." As for the Prairie Print Makers, the role of C.A. Seward was of key importance in finding employment in the graphic arts for many of the members. Seward, who had been head of the art departments at the Southwest Advertising Company and the Capper Engraving Company, established a printing service for other artists at the Western Lithograph Company in Wichita, where he was the supervising artist from 1923-1929. Seward also wrote Metal Plate Lithography (1931) which has been called the first work on the subject specifically for artists. Prairie Print Makers Charles Capps, William J. Dickerson, Leo Courtney, Clarence Hotvedt, and Lloyd Foltz all worked at the Western Lithograph Company early in their careers, and Herschel Logan worked for McCormick-Armstrong Lithography Co. in Wichita, and was appointed Art Director of Consolidated Printing and Stationary Co. of Salina, Kansas, in 1931. Seward was also instrumental in introducing many of the artists to printmaking, as well as giving them further instruction in his backyard studio, where, Capps recalls, "we were taught the fine points of etching, lithography, block printing and variations on these media."

Several factors distinguish the Prairie Print Makers, in their early years, from other print making societies. With the exception of Smalley, they were an organization of artists, and they were particularly close knit (convening on weekends at Seward's studio, and some took sketching vacations together). Many shared a common training in the commercial arts, and a dedication to an unidealized description of the mid-western scene. Perhaps as important for their identity as a group was the august figure of Birger Sandzen, and the presence of a tireless and enthusiastic promoter in the person of Carl Smalley (to whom alone is due the remarkable fact that McPherson, Kansas, population 5000, had a "per capita ownership of art greater than New York City").

As the group grew, and began to draw from a national membership, and as its charter members joined other printmaking societies (Capps was invited to join six other societies, Seward was invited to seven), the geographic identity of the Prairie Print Makers became increasingly diluted. For example, beginning with Sandzen's A Kansas Creek of 1931, the first half dozen gift prints issued by the Prairie Print Makers testify to their single mindedness, while many of the subsequent gift prints speak for the group's growing geographic and thematic diversity. Already by 1936 the first of many images of New Mexican adobe buildings appeared, in 1940 the East Coast artist Stow Wengenroth produced his first of two gift prints on New England themes, and by 1943 the first of three gift prints of European and Asian subjects appeared. It is too easy to conclude that the Prairie Printmakers simply testify to the pervasiveness of printmaking societies in mid-twentieth century America. Flourishing in the seemingly inhospitable climate of the depression era prairie, their roots point to an indigenous enthusiasm for the graphic arts, an enthusiasm fueled as much by the pleasure of making prints as by the pleasure of bringing them to the attention of a larger public. The group's ultimate success (boasting forty-seven Active Members and over 100 Associate Members four years after their inauguration), however, should not overshadow their exceptional origins as a discrete group of friends brought together by geographic affinities and their passion for printmaking.

Stephen Goddard
based on the gallery guide accompanying the 1988 exhibition:
The Prairie Print Makers: The Gift Prints. Selections from the Bud and Ruby Jennings Collection

Sources:

• Ashley, Mark. "Art for the Walls of America." Esquire Magazine 17 (May 1942): 62, 98.
• Broun, Elizabeth, Gregory Gilbert, and David C. Henry. Kansas Printmakers. Lawrence, Spencer Museum of Art (exhibition catalogue), 1981.
• Flint, Janet. Art for All: American Print Publishing between the Wars. Washington, D.C., National Museum of American Art (exhibition catalogue), 1980.
• Mines, Cynthia. For the Sake of Art: The Story of an Art Movement in Kansas. McPherson and North Newton, 1979.
• North, Bill, et. al. The Prairie Print Makers. Kansas City, Missouri, Exhibits USA, Mid-America Arts Alliance (exhibition catalogue), 2001. Essays by Karal Ann Marling, Elizabeth G. Seaton, and Bill North. Catalogue of the Exhibition by Bill North.
• O'Neill, Barbara Thompson, and George C. Foreman. The Prairie Print Makers. Wichita, 1981.
• Peters, Lisa. "Print Clubs in America." Print Collectors Newsletter 13 no. 3 (July-August 1982): 88-91.
• Whitmore, Elizabeth. Prints for the Layman. Boston, 1927.