1950s Eugene Jemison Abstract Etching

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Eugene Franklin Jemison (Kansas, 1916-2000) abstracted female nude figure etching. Pencil signed. Combined shipping available, please inquire.

From the Missouri … Read more Eugene Franklin Jemison (Kansas, 1916-2000) abstracted female nude figure etching. Pencil signed. Combined shipping available, please inquire.

From the Missouri Artists website:

Eugene Jemison was an artist and musician who embraced all aspects of the creative process, from writing folk ballads to creating abstract prints. Jemison was born in 1916 on a farm in Alton, Kansas. His father and uncles were balladeers who toured the region performing traditional ballads. Jemison spent his youth playing the family organ and painting on an easel next to it.

Jemison completed his undergraduate studies at Washburn College (interrupted by WWII), then enrolled at the Kansas City Art Institute and the University of Kansas City to study with the balladeer John Jacob Niles. After receiving his master's degree in 1948, he was hired by the Art Institute to head their photography, print-making and graphic design department.

He served for many years as an ambassador for the Association of American Colleges, giving lectures and performances of folk music around the country. He published a book of experimental print-making processes, including methods called "Imaginative Processes of Graphic Visualization" and "Objective Realism through Psychic Automatism." In 1954, he released an album of folk songs called Solomon Valley Ballads, which was accompanied by a series of thirteen lithograph illustrations. You can listen to his this album on streaming platforms - go do it now. Well buy the etching and then do it.

From 1965-1968, Eugene Jemison lived in New York to study and perform folk music amidst a growing community of folk artists. Then, in 1969 he became a professor at Lake Superior State College in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. He stayed there for the next seventeen years, teaching an array of art courses, holding community workshops, and organizing public art exhibitions while performing ballads at venues nationwide.

Jemison retired in 1986 and moved to Port Charlotte, Florida where he died in 2000. See less