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Geranium
Geranium, detail
Cyclamen
Cyclamen, detail
Kalanchoe
Kalanchoe, detail

Fine Art, Flower Composition, Ornamental Plants, Claude Saucy, 4 Prints, 20th Century (Sold)

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Claude Gerald Saucy (1929-1999)
Kalanchoe
Geranium
Constant Nymph [Streptocarpus]
Cyclamen
American: c. 1960s-1990s
Green and brown ink etchings with hand coloring
Each signed and titled below plate mark, with A.P. notation
11.75 x 8.75 inches, plate mark
20 x 15.25 inches, overall

Set of four prints of flowering plants, two printed in green ink and two in sepia ink, with additional subtle hand coloring in watercolor.   Drawn in a graceful, linear style, each plant has its own character.  The subjects seem to have been chosen for the visual interest of their leaves, which have strikingly rich textures and curving planes that the artist plays off the vertical linear forms of the stems.  The prints demonstrate the attention to detail of traditional natural history illustrations, though with a modern artist’s interest in the formal qualities of the plants, as opposed to an 18th- or 19th-century illustrator’s interest in the classification of species. All of the prints are labeled “A.P.,” i.e. artist’s proofs, a designation meaning the print is not part of a numbered edition. Artist’s proofs generally are early strikes of the print or prints retained by the artist and not sold by the publisher.

Product description continues below.

Description

Claude Gerald Saucy was a Swiss-born printmaker and educator whose primary media were wood engraving, copperplate engraving, and etching.  He studied art in Switzerland under Max Bill, a Swiss architect, artist, painter, typeface designer, industrial designer and graphic designer. Saucy spent his early career as an artist and teacher in Switzerland where he became known for his black and white surrealistic prints.  He moved with his family to Connecticut in 1966 to become Head of the Art Department at the Kent School, a private college preparatory school, a position he held until he retired in 1993. Although his later work included color monoprint woodblocks, the offered color-printed botanical prints are an unusual subject matter for him. Saucy is included in the Biografisches Lexikon der Schweizer Kunst [Biographical Dictionary of Swiss Artists] (1998).

References:

“Saucy, Claude.” Swiss Institute for Art Research. 2006. http://www.sikart.ch/ (20 September 2007).

Note: Some of the biographical information was provided by the artist’s son, Marcel C. Saucy.

Additional information

Century

20th Century