Prairie Print Makers

Below is a brief history of the Prairie Print Makers and two articles about the group.

The Prairie Print Makers group was formed on December 28, 1930, when 11 of Kansas' best artists, also friends, gathered in the Lindsborg studio of Swedish-born Birger Sandzen, an artist who had been inspired to teach at Bethany College in Kansas after reading a description of the college in Carl Swensson's I Sverige in 1890. The Print Makers' purpose was spelled out in an invitation to join the organization made 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."

Several factors set the Prairie Print Makers apart from other print making societies of their time. Their location in Wichita, Kansas, a relatively small, yet highly entrepreneurial city in the center of the Midwest, combined with the unique qualities that the ten founding members brought to the group, created a synergy that distinguishes this organization in the history of American print societies.

Many of the printmakers in the group were also professional graphic artists who took up printmaking as an avocation. Each year, they would commission a print by someone in the group and they would give it to all their members. The 34 gift prints made annually over the group's history included traditional printmaking techniques such as lithographs, etchings, drypoints, aquatints, and wood engravings.

All of the founding members of the Prairie Print Makers contributed to the group’s unique synergy. Both Arthur Hall and Norma Bassett Hall, who resided in nearby Eldorado, Kansas, contributed the skill and knowledge they had acquired from a year of study in France. Charles Capps brought his meticulous nature and his disciplined mastery of aquatint. Herschel Logan lent his skill as a craftsman and instinctive aptitude for carving wood blocks. Lloyd Foltz contributed his enthusiasm and dedication to perfecting his skill in each medium, and his very specific instinct for creating modern, dynamic compositions. William Dickerson provided expertise from his study and work as an assistant to the eminent stone lithographer, Bolton Brown. Clarence Hotvedt contributed his strength as a draftsman and Edmund Kopietz spread the reputation of the group to Minneapolis where, just previous to the founding meeting of the Prairie Print Makers, he had been appointed as the Director of the Minnesota Art Academy. Birger Sandzen, the eldest member of the group, had studied with the virtuoso etcher Anders Zorn at the University of Lund, as well as with painter, Aman-Jean in Paris prior to his departure for America to join the staff at Bethany College in Lindsborg.

The group helped sell members' work to a wide audience by sponsoring inexpensive traveling exhibitions. These exhibitions met a public eager to purchase prints that were more affordable than those sold by European printmakers who were popular at the time, such as Sir Francis Seymour Haden, Anders Zorn and James Whistler. Carl Smalley, an art dealer who sold the works of Sandzen, expressed the democratic attitude of the group when he wrote, "I have dreams of providing original prints and good paintings for the walls of every schoolhouse in Kansas." Until the Prairie Print Makers ended its run in 1965, they never raised their $1 annual membership fee.

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. That the group boasted forty-seven Active Members and over 100 Associate Members just four years after its inauguration, is a testament to their exceptional yet simple origin as a distinct group of artist friends brought together by geographic affinities and their passion for printmaking.

Print Makers Join In Club Containing Finest Of Artists

Organization to Further Making and Collecting of Prints

January 4, 1930  (Permission to reprint by The Wichita Eagle.)  

  Wichita is the headquarters of America’s newest organization of Print Makers. The name of the new club is the Prairie Print Makers.

  The purpose of the organization is to further the interest of both the artist and the layman in print making and collecting.

  A group of mid-western print makers have been working for a year, perfecting the details of the plan. The final meeting was held December 28, at the studio of Birger Sandzen in Lindsborg, Kan. In the gravure section of today’s Wichita Eagle is a representative group of prints by the ten original organizers, also a photo of the group taken near the studio of Mr. Sandzen in Lindsborg.

  The officers of the Prairie Print Makers are Leo Courtney, president; Charles M. Capps, vice president; C.A. Seward, secretary-treasurer, all well known Wichita artists.

  Membership is by invitation only and is divided into three classes, active, associate and honorary.

  The active members are the artists who make prints, lithographs, etchings, wood blocks or prints in any of the generally accepted graphic art mediums.

  Associate members receive each year a gift print made by one of the active print makers and worth many times the amount of the annual dues. The edition of this print is limited and cannot be obtained in any other way, as the plate and entire edition is owned and controlled by the print club.

  The honorary group is selected from those who have performed some special service for the cause of print making or collecting.

  Mr. Carl Smalley of McPherson has the honor of being the first honorary member elected. Mr. Wm. Dickerson, another well known Wichita artist was the first active member to be elected after the organization was formed, and Mrs. Richard M. Gray of Wichita was the first associate member.

  The Prairie Print Makers is modeled after other national organizations, there being three other principal groups in this field. The oldest of this group is the Chicago Society of Etchers, the next is the Brooklyn Society of Etchers, and the other one being the California Print Makers. The Prairie Print Makers is modeled closely after the California group.

  The new society is in no way a competitive organization. Most of the organizers of the Prairie Print Makers are already members of one or more of the older societies and will continue to hold their memberships. The new group has a definite part in the development of our national appreciation of fine prints.

  The older societies have about reached their limit on membership and have long waiting lists. This seems to indicate a need for a centrally located organization. In fact the secretaries of all three of the older societies have not only approved the idea of the Prairie Print Makers, but have furnished much helpful information which has been gratefully accepted by the organizers of the new society.

     Invitations have been mailed to a large group of persons who have been recommended for associate membership. The active membership will be carefully and slowly selected from print makers who are actively making and exhibiting prints. One of the main functions of the Prairie Print Makers is to stimulate active creative effort.

  An annual exhibition will be held each year to which the active members will submit their latest productions. Group exhibitions will be selected from this exhibition to be circulated throughout the country.

  The second and more important activity of the organization is to stimulate appreciation for prints, and for print collecting. Helpful information will be circulated on how to begin a print collection and to care for it. Carl Smalley of McPherson, a nationally known authority on prints says, “One may not need to expend a great amount of money in building a good collection if wisdom is used in the selection from the many promising contemporary prints that may someday become old masters.”

  While the active membership is being carefully selected from recognized print makers, this is by no means the most important work of the governing board, according to C.A. Seward, secretary-treasurer. “We plan to recruit new talent as rapidly as new and talented young print makers can be found. Owing to the crowded condition of the memberships of the other organizations, the beginner is handicapped in getting his prints into the exhibitions and thus public approval is delayed. It is our purpose not only to help the experienced print maker but also to help these younger folks to get their work before the public.”

  The Wichita Art Association is interested in seeing the Prairie Print Makers go forward and it is likely that the annual exhibition of this new print society will be one of the main attractions of future programs of the Wichita Art Association. It will be an event of national importance in the art field. The Art Association hopes to have their new museum completed by autumn so that future exhibitions may be held under ideal conditions.

 Printmakers On The Prairie by Carolyn McMaster

June 12, 1988 -  Permission to reprint by the Lawrence Journal World

In 1930, a small group of artists assembled in Lindsborg at Birger Sandzen’s studio. It was the first meeting of the Prairie Print Makers, a society promoting the making of prints. The group prospered, peaking in the 1940’s and lasting until 1965. It boasted more than 100 members from around the United States in its heyday, including regionalist John Steuart Curry and Mary Huntoon, the Topeka artist who pioneered art therapy.

The charter members were Sandzen, Charles M. Capps, Lloyd Foltz, Arthur W. Hall, Norma Bassett Hall, Clarence Hotvedt, Edmund Kopietz, Herschel C. Logan and C.A. Seward. Most of the 10 founding artists were commercial artists in Wichita.

 “It seemed, to me, very alive,” recalled charter member Foltz, 90, in a telephone interview last week from his Wichita home. “I thought Wichita was pretty active, compared to Topeka and other areas I was familiar with.”

At the time, there were quite a number of similar organizations that commissioned prints and sponsored exhibitions, and the members of the Kansas-based group often belonged to several, such as the Chicago Society of Etchers, Northwestern Printmakers and the Brooklyn Society of Etchers.

Generally, artists could join by invitation only. But the Prairie Print Makers were unusual for a number of reasons, says graphics curator Stephen Goddard. It was conceived and looked after by a group of artists, which was rather unusual,” Goddard said. “Most of them (print societies) were associated with a big city or major museum that had a constituency they could draw upon.”

 It’s also remarkable that such an organization was founded in Depression-era Kansas – and thrived.

From 1931 to 1965, the society commissioned a print by one of the member artists to be given to the entire membership. (No print was made in 1963.) One of the group’s aims was to promote prints as affordable art.

 “This group really interests me when it’s getting off the ground, “ Goddard remarked. “It was much more a group of friends making prints, and you can see that in the spirit of the early works.”

Sandzen made the first gift print, a lithograph titled “A Kansas Creek.” The landscape was a major interest for these artists, although the Midwest wasn’t the sole source. A number of the artists spent a great deal of time in the Southwest, which is depicted in Charles Capps’ masterful aquatints, “Mexican Barbershop” (1938) and “Idyl of New Mexico” (1965), both created as gift prints.

The works are lithographs, etchings, aquatint, block prints, drypoint and engravings. Illustrative in their varied styles, the works are unremarkable for the most part but none the less are sweet and genuine. They show, above all, a love for the print media and strong technical command.                                                    

 It may be that economic hardship and lack of local art resources contributed to the society’s strength. It opened up contacts with artists around the country and provided a setting for the Kansas artists to gather and discuss their work. With the exception of the Sweden-born Sandzen, who studied with Anders Zorn, and the Halls, the founders had no European training.

 “These were people who were enthusiastic about making visual things, and crafting them themselves,” Goddard said. “This group grew out of friendship and a commitment to hand-made artifacts.”

The founders were unpretentious, sensible, and they loved their art.

 “It was almost a social gathering,” said another founding member, Clarence Hotvedt, 88, in a telephone interview from his Wichita home. “Yeah, we’d inspire each other…we kind of stuck together. I didn’t know of any organization like ours in the country.”

At the center of the Prairie Print Makers were Birger Sandzen, Lindsborg’s artist of regional renown who taught at Bethany College, and his friend Carl Smalley, an enthusiastic book and art dealer in Wichita.

C.A. Seward, who was art director at Western Lithograph from 1923 to his death in 1939, was the main artistic force behind the organization. “C.A. Seward was really the artist in Wichita to do work for,” Hotvedt recalled. “I worked under him for years. He inspired us young people to get to working on these things.”

Seward was a pioneer of metal plate lithography. He was devoted to promoting the arts in general, and also founded the Wichita Art Association.

 “I think, to name an individual, C.A. Seward was the inspiration for all of us,” Lloyd Foltz said. “I’m certain he and Leo Courtney got the idea, and put it together, and arranged with Dr. Sandzen to get together in Lindsborg.”

Seward drew together a number of the young printmakers at Western Lithograph Co. in Wichita. Of the charter members of PPM, Seward, Charles Capps, Foltz and Hotvedt were among commercial artists there.

 “I benefitted greatly from Seward’s experience as a lithographer,” said Foltz, who worked at Western from 1925 to 1969. “I’d never done any lithography or etching or block printing before I met him. I called him my daddy as far as art is concerned; I learned everything I knew from him.”

“We had a great time getting together socially, “ Foltz continued. “Mr. Seward had a small building

with a small press, and we’d get together on Saturday afternoons and talk about all sorts of things. It was social, but it was all about art and printmaking We had all sorts of interests, but none of it was as important as art.”

The Prairie Print Makers was in its heyday in the 1940’s. “It began to wane at that time, and I don’t know for what reason,” Foltz said. He noted that etching and lithography were losing popularity. But more specifically, the death of Seward at age 54 in 1939, and Courtney’s death two years later, had an impact on the group, Foltz said. “They were our leaders,” he recalled. “And you can imagine that had something to do with it.”

Of the society’s charter members, Sandzen, Seward and Capps received the most recognition nationally. “It’s also interesting to me that of the big regional artists – Benton, Curry and Weed – only Curry was a member and he never made a print,” Goddard noted. Yet Foltz says Curry wasn’t as well-known nationally in the 30’s and early 40’s as Capps, Seward and a number of other Prairie Print Makers. He was flattered by the invitation to join. In his acceptance letter, dated Feb. 4, 1938, he wrote, “…am very glad to belong. I haven’t made any new lithographs for two years. But expect to start in on a new series very soon.” Whether joining the PPM group inspired Curry to make the prints is unknown.