Author: Tracey Cullen

Publisher:

Published: 2021-06-25

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9780578897615

This book, John A. Spelman, Artist and Printmaker: From Appalachia to Minnesota's North Shore, is a companion publication for an exhibition by the same title to be held in the Johnson Heritage Post Art Gallery in Grand Marais, Minnesota, during the summer of 2021. The book will be made available as a way to extend the viewer's experience. John Spelman was primarily a printmaker, specializing in linoleum-blocks and woodcuts. An introductory essay covers the arc of Spelman's life from his birth in Oak Park, Illinois, in 1912, through his childhood summers spent in northeastern Minnesota, his young adult years in southeastern Kentucky, and finally to his last three decades in Grand Marais, Minnesota. The following sections of the book-entitled Early Years, Appalachian Years, and Minnesota Years-present some 120 examples of Spelman's artwork, including both relief prints and watercolors, annotated with short descriptive texts. A list of sources consulted by the authors completes the volume. Spelman died in 1969, but he is still a vibrant presence in the communities whose landscape and architecture he portrayed so well. His art has considerable aesthetic merit in his chosen medium, and is also of historical significance for what he portrayed of the culture of two remote areas of the United States.