She was Impressive

Since the 1960s Karl Wirsum has experimented in printmaking that pushes two-dimensional media off the wall and into the round. Initially, he printed on clothing, designed tattoos, masks, hats, and puppets (See Smart Museum 2001.537, 2001.543-545). She Was Impressive pushes the techniques of traditional printmaking to new expression in terms of Wirsum’s creative combination of shapes he created using a blind stamp and intaglio (etching) techniques.

The title refers to three prints pulled in a regular edition of ten impressions at the University of Texas at Austin, while Wirsum was a guest artist in the Printmaking Program of the Art Department. (See also 2001.546-547.) In all three prints the outline of the central imagery of two weight-lifting figures is made using blind stamps. (A blind stamp is created from an un-inked plate, or die, pressed to dampened paper. In printmaking history such blind stamps were reserved for identification or marginal decorative uses.) This print is a blind stamp impression created from two un-inked die casts. Two related prints are etchings in purple ink with plate tone with one difference between them: one is a blind stamp impression (2001.546) and the other is a relief blind stamp impression (2001.547).